Folk Cures and Practical Magic

1
3
Researched and edited by Terra Barrett,
Andrea McGuire, and Dale Jarvis
Interviews by Thomas Lane
Oral History Roadshow Series #002
Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador
Intangible Cultural Heritage Office
St. John’s, NL, Canada
Layout / design by Jessie Meyer
2017
Folk Cures and Practical Magic
4
Introduction
Spaniard's Bay, like most small Newfoundland and Labrador
communities, contains a wealth of 'hand- me-down' stories,
recollections and anecdotes including its share of superstition,
secrets and sorcery that has stood the test of time. As an added
component to our Heritage mandate, it was decided to pursue an
Oral History/Collective Memory project that would bring seniors
and all interested residents together to share in a common goal.
Since generations of ancestors had very limited medical know-ledge
and little or no access to doctors or hospitals, people relied on
family and community elders for remedies and home- made cures
to deal with common ailments such as sore throats, stomach upset
and headaches. Charms and spells were considered acceptable
( and welcome) methods to "put away" warts, predict the number
of children a woman might have ( and their sex), or rid your eye of
a nasty stye. This book is a result of conversations and interviews
with various residents that focus mainly on 'old time' medicinal
applications, beliefs and cures.
While it is essential to research, record and preserve our intan-gible
culture before memories fade and sources are lost, it is in
the telling and re-telling, recollection and reminiscence, easy
conversation and laughter that we realize, recognize and cherish
the irreplaceable gift of our ancestors and how important it is
that we take steps to keep it safe for future generations. It is my
fervent hope that this collection of stories is the first volume of
many that will be our Spaniard's Bay Oral History Archives.
5
Sincere appreciation and thanks to Dale Jarvis for your in-spiration,
advice and assistance and to the Town of Spaniard's
Bay and to Heritage Society members for continued support in
this venture and all things Heritage. Thanks to the Society’s
own summer student Thomas Lane, as well as Terra Barrett,
Aerial photo of the Oral History Roadshow event in the Wesley Gosse Memorial Museum
in Spaniard’s Bay. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
Introduction
6
L to R: Thomas Lane, Kelsey Parsons, Dianne Carr, Abigail Smith, and Dale Jarvis in front
of the Wesley Gosse Heritage Museum. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
and Andrea McGuire with the Heritage Foundation who re-searched
and recorded these stories.
Most of all, this book would not happen without the generous
participation of those whose words give voice to our past.
Thank you!
Dianne Carr
Spaniard's Bay Heritage Society
Introduction
Magic
8
But they said they would pass [their power] on, some people
would, and others wouldn’t tell what they did. But it’s almost like
a miracle, you know. –Patricia Rodgers
I don’t remember a whole lot of things. There were definitely
people who were known to be able to do certain things. Now my
grandmother who was from Winterton, Trinity Bay she lived to
be 88 and she had many, many stories to tell. As we were growing
up she told us lots of different things about her childhood and
about different superstitions that people had in the community.
Mostly to do, because it was a fishing community, mostly to do
with people being lost at sea, and people having apparitions, the
old hag – the nightmares, those kind of things. But she loved to
read tea leaves. She did do that quite a bit and whenever we had
tea leaves we would say, “Nanny, nanny, can you read our tea?”
Nails. Courtesy of Pixabay.
HEALING POWERS
9
We would tip the cup and she would look at our leaves and then
she would pronounce. Oh well, you’re going to, for example, you’ll
get married, you’ll have a long life, you’re going to have X number
of children. These kinds of things. None of which I remember.
But I remember that it was fun to do. –Dianne Carr
I would say I was probably ten or eleven years old, and visiting
my mom’s family in Norman’s Cove. They lived in what they
called, “out the lane” that was going out towards the wharf. All
my mom’s family lived there, grew up there. That was my Aunt
Lizzie and Uncle Ern. That was their house that we used to stay
at, mom and I. They had a daughter my age, Barb, and a son, Clee,
who lives in St. John’s, Cleophus Newhook, and two daughters:
one who lives in Winterton, Florrie, who’s an artist; and their
other daughter Bessie, who lives in Placentia. We always hung
out together. We would help with turning and making the hay,
which was, you know, drudgery and a chore for them, but it was
fun for me. We’d like to go out into the barn, and there was a
loft in the barn. When they made the hay, and they put it in the
barn, then us as kids—we probably weren’t supposed to do it—we
would go and get up on the loft and jump down in the piles of hay,
which would be almost up to the roof of the barn. This evening, I
remember it being after supper or something, we were out there,
and some more of my cousins who live out there in the lane, and
we’d jump off—and I jumped, and probably jumped too high, and
hit my head, put my hand up, as you would, and when I put my
hand up and took it down it was red, it was bleeding. So of course
we all ran screaming and crying into the house. First thing
they did was call for Uncle Clee. He was called Old Uncle Clee,
because there were two or three of them in the family. He was,
HEALING POWERS
10
as I said, the principal of the school, the minister, he performed
all of the things that you had to do in the community, and that
was the first thing, to go and get him. He came up, and he looked
at it, and I can still remember it now. He said, “Go and get the
nail.” So I think it must have been [cousin] Clee, had to go and get
the nail out of the loft, and then he said, “Put it in the kerosene
oil can.” I don’t think anyone, including me, questioned why, but
I wonder today, what was the purpose of the nail, putting it in
the kerosene oil? Now, I don’t think any more of my cousins will
remember that other than me, but I guess it must have had a big
impact on me. Then he cut the hair around the cut, you know,
cleaned it with something—I don’t know what it was—and I think
he put something like myrrh or something on it. Myrrh was the
sticky stuff off the trees. That would kind of seal it up. It was like
stitching. That’s all. [It] healed, I never had any infection, I never
had anything after that—but I could still feel this little spot on
my head for years. The hair grew back. But it was funny—and I
never ever asked why it was a nail in the lamp. Because kerosene
oil came in a can, and we had to put it down there. Unless it was
so nobody else would hurt themselves on it, it might have been
something as simple as that, but it was very profound for me at
the time. –Judy Symonds
There were a few people who were known for different magical
things like that. There was an older lady, and I did not know
her—I know her descendents, of course—but she was well known
throughout the community. There was one doctor for the whole
of Harbour Grace, Upper Island Cove, Bryant’s Cove, Bishop’s
Cove, all those communities, only the one doctor, and he lived
in Harbour Grace. That was the only medical access you would
HEALING POWERS
11
HEALING POWERS
have. But there was this lady, and she was magical, apparently,
with a lot of things. So if anybody had any problems, they would
go and see her. –Ralph Barrett
One of the things that I did have experience with was the old
hag. My husband was bothered with that so when he would
experience that he said he could feel someone sitting on his chest.
He was having dreams but he would moan a lot and it became
quite evident that he was experiencing that sort of nightmare
and so I would have to make sure I shook him awake and got him
completely awake. Not to just leave him there. He said it was a
terrible feeling to feel that presence with him. It happened quite
a lot early in our marriage. It took quite a lot to rouse him. My son
when he was quite young, when he was just walking, two, three
Dianne Carr. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
12
HEALING POWERS
years old he seemed to be sleep walking quite a bit but his eyes
were open. He would come out to me looking for mommy and I
couldn’t convince him I was mommy. My mother-in-law said
you have to say his full name so I would say to him, rather loudly,
“Peter Brian Russell, wake up Peter Brian Russell!” That would
work and then he would wake up, and go back to bed and go to
sleep. But he would be walking to me—eyes wide open but not
recognizing me at all and just looking for mommy. I’m not sure if
that was something of the same sort of nature—it wasn’t the idea
of having someone on your chest but of being not fully aware and
being bothered by that. –Jeanette Russell
There were some magical things—home remedy stuff—that they
would use for cures. I remember one instance that just came into
my mind then, one particular family—and they were fishermen.
Not like the fishermen now, because this was back 70 years ago or
more. By the water’s edge, there was a fishing stage that they would
have to take care of their fish and salt it, salt away the herring in
barrels and stuff. Many times during the winter somebody might
have a sore throat, usually somebody in the family. What they
would do was go over to the fishing stage to get a salt herring, and
shake the salt off of it, They’d get a piece of clean cloth and wrap up
the salt herring, and tie that around their neck for a sore throat. It
must have been nice and smelly. [laughs] –Ralph Barrett
We had a woods behind our house. Our area wasn’t very developed
down off Park Avenue and there was a little circle in that area and
I was young but I used to go down there and I was told it was a
fairy circle so when I was about seven or eight our cat had been
hit, Tinkerbell, had been hit by a bb gun. I can remember Mom and
13
HEALING POWERS
Dad standing over the cat and they were talking about having to go
get it put down which was very unusual then to even go to a vet. I
believed that if my cat went to the fairy circle, I believed the fairies
would take my cat and bring him into the circle and the cat would
be okay. So I remember coming home that day and Tinkerbell
wasn’t there and my mom telling me that she saw Tinkerbell go
down in the woods and she saw the fairies come out and take
Tinkerbell with them. So I was okay. I thought Tinkerbell had
gone to a better situation. So yeah there was a fairy circle there but
when I was about eleven or twelve they bulldozed it down and put
up Jubilee Square or Circle. –Deborah Noel
My grandmother, who was Miriam Bursey Churley, she was
born a Bursey in Lance Cove, which I think was in Brownsdale.
She married my grandfather Elias Churley from Old Perlican.
She had a charm, which was passed on to her from some older
male relative. I think it was words, but she had to put her hands
on wherever the problem was. She used it to get rid of warts, and
soothe toothaches. I don’t know if it did anything else, because as
I said, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, never having had need
of it. Maybe it worked for earaches too, I don’t know. But when she
died, I gather she passed the charm on to my brother, who lives in
Winnipeg. I forgot to ask him whether she actually did—because
we’ve never talked—he’s never mentioned it. But she said that she
would pass it on to him, because it had to go male-female-male,
that kind of thing. –Edna Roberts
14
MAY SNOW
There was always the talk
that May snow was good
for the eyes and back then
we didn’t seem to have as
much May snow it seemed
like. Or freckles! Good for
washing freckles. I did
try it even though I didn’t
have sore eyes at the time
but I thought, “Well we’ve
got May snow so I’ve got
to try this.” Having not
had sore eyes I did not
have sore eyes after I
applied it! But it was a
known thing. My grandmother used to always have those sorts
of things to tell us about. I didn’t have many freckles so I don’t
know if that would’ve worked for freckles but it is worth trying I
suppose. –Jeanette Russell
The May snow was someone from O’Regan’s in the Codroy
Valley. We used to go over there fishing, and [she] had a fishing
camp where we used to stay. She would actually go out in May
and get snow. I don’t know if she kept it as water in her fridge, or
snow in the freezer, but I remember my husband had something
wrong with his eyes one time, and she said, “Come up and I’ll rub
them with May snow.” She did, but I didn’t see that either. I don’t
know if it worked. –Edna Roberts
Edna Roberts. 2017. Photo by Andrea McGuire.
15
REMOVING FRECKLES
Oh how I hated my freckles when I was about seven or eight! Go
out in the morning when the dew was on the grass go and wash
your face in that and it’ll take your freckles away. Didn’t work but
it gave you something to occupy your time while you were out on
holidays for a week. It didn’t make any difference. –Eyvonne Harris
Freckles. Courtesy of Pixabay.
16
SEVENTH SON
That has a mysterious character. Seventh son of a seventh son,
they sort of had powers. –Ralph Barrett
They used to say that [if you placed a worm on] a seventh son of a
seventh son the worm would die. Whether there was any truth to
it or not I don’t know. –Nathan Barrett
We just heard that said. I didn’t know anybody who was the
seventh son of a seventh son but that person was supposed to
have healing abilities. So it was just a matter of it being known.
Not that I knew anybody. –Jeanette Russell
One of mom’s cousins—a little boy—was a seventh son of a
seventh son. I can remember seeing people being brought to
him, and his mother laying his little hand, you know, and saying
whatever he had to say. As a child, at ten or eleven years old, I
knew that there was something special about this little boy. I
can’t remember his name or anything. I was told he was special,
because he was a seventh son of a seventh son. That was in
Norman’s Cove. So he was a little boy at the time and people
were being brought to them. I mean, it’s just so interesting that
this little boy would be told he had this power. –Judy Symonds
17
TOOTHACHE CURES
Cloves for a toothache. Oil of clove and they would put it around
the tooth. I think people still do it now. –Deborah Noel
I remember for a toothache people would blow cigarette smoke
into your mouth. Sore ear was probably just warm water in a
compress and maybe olive oil, mom might’ve put oil. I doubt it
was olive oil; I don’t think anyone had even heard of olive oil
then. –Deborah Noel
What would we do for a toothache? We’d put a hot cloth on our
face, I know that. But I can’t remember rubbing anything inside
on my gums or anything, it was probably something they did. But
I can’t remember anything about that. You’d probably get a hot
water bottle or something like that. –Patricia Rodgers
My nan. She had a great cure for anything. If you had a toothache
go eat a biscuit. It worked. It had to be those round molasses,
Purity molasses cookies. No that’s what nan used to tell me.
I was only about seven or eight and they were wicked, wicked
toothaches and that’s what she would say and I would go in
and she would have her package in her little cupboard and I
would take one and munch away because they are right soft. No
toothache! –Eyvonne Harris
So, pains in your face mom would heat a plate in the oven and
you could put that to your face. Or you would have a hot water
bottle. But I can remember using a warm plate too. Somehow I
don’t know why that would be more effective but maybe it was
easier to hold to your faces. –Jeanette Russell
18
TOOTHACHE CURES
Another medicine or cure was—I used to have a lot of toothaches
because I loved eating candy, especially at night, and not brushing
my teeth afterwards, which was a bad thing in my family, because
[my mother] was a dental nurse, you see. Anyway, a clove—the
whole clove was put on the tooth that was aching, and then you
would keep it there in your mouth as best as possible. That would
help to relieve the ache until you went to the dentist. It must have
worked well, because it took the pain away—because she wasn’t
about to give us any aspirin, I don’t even know if aspirin was
invented or at least if it was, we never had it. –Sally Peddle
Cloves. Courtesy of Pixabay.
19
TOOTHACHE CHARMS
If you had a toothache or anything you would go to some old
person and they would charm it. –Nathan Barrett
Yes I knew about [charmers] but my gosh I don’t know their names
now but I know they used to go to some people and sure enough
they would take away the warts and heal toothaches. Some that
were seventh sons they would be the ones. –Clarice Adams
There was also a prayer for a toothache. Now, I don’t know the
prayer—I can’t remember. There was a lady here who used to
say a prayer for your toothache. I can’t remember who she was. I
never went to her, by the way, but I used to hear people saying, “If
you go to such a lady,” and I can’t remember her name, “she’ll say
a prayer, and your toothache will get better.” –Dot O’Brien
There was an old fellow who lived down the road from us, called
Uncle Billy Hutchings. He used to charm your tooth if you got a
toothache. We would go down when we were young fellows and
he would charge you 25 cents, and 25 cents was a lot of money
then when I was growing up. We could get a bar, bag of chips, and
a bottle of drink out of a quarter. So we would go down and Uncle
Billy would have the rum, he would have a bottle of rum, and he
would take this rum and rub it over your tooth. I don’t know what
he would say but he would say something when rubbing it over
your tooth and in two days it would go away. Now after a while
the toothache would come back again because there’s not much
sense, the rum only deadened the tooth. He wanted to get our
quarter! –Edward Crane
20
TOOTHACHE CHARMS
I only know one old fellow. He lived down to the gullies. Uncle
George Mercer. He could cure your tooth. If you had a toothache
you would go down to George. I went down one time when I had a
toothache, now I had an aunt married to his son, and I went down
and she said, he was in his garden it was in the fall of the year, and
she said, “Now, when you go over don’t say Mr. and don’t thank
him,” she said. “Alright I won’t.” I said, “George, cure my tooth.” He
kept on digging potatoes. He never said anything. She said, “Go to
the house.” So I go home and sit down and mom was there a nice
while and my son I say, I had some toothache. He came over and
Dot O’Brien. 2017. Photo by Andrea McGuire.
21
TOOTHACHE CHARMS
he said, “Kneel down.” So I kneeled down and blessed myself. He
put his hand in whatever he had in there and whatever he said, I
don’t know what he said. Then he said, “Get up,” and he said to his
daughter in law, “Mary, give him a cup of tea.” I had a cup of tea and
the toothache was gone then –Mike Whalen
There was another incident where there was this gentleman,
and he had a magical thing for toothache. Because dentists
were more scarce than doctors, and I mean, there was only one
doctor for the whole area. But there was no dentist. But if you
had a toothache, you’d have to go and see this particular man.
He was just a labourer like everybody else. But prior to going,
your mother would have to make a little bag, probably about
two inches square, with a string—and the string had to be long
enough to go around your neck. When you went to see this man,
this gentleman, and you’d tell him that you had toothache, you
had to tell him where—so, “Open your mouth, and put your
finger on that tooth,” and he’d put his finger on that tooth, and
he’d get a little scrap of paper and a pencil, and he’d scribble
some kind of little symbols on that piece of paper, and fold it and
put it in that little bag that you had on your neck. “It’s against
the law, you’re not supposed to look at that.” Oh, that was very
secret, you’re not allowed to look at that. If you did, I mean, that
was—everything was wiped clear, you know, that wouldn’t do
any good. The power in that piece of paper would be destroyed,
so you weren’t allowed to look at it. You put that in this little bag
on your neck, and you had to wear that until the toothache was
gone. When the toothache was gone—it might take a week, or
two weeks—then you could take it off. –Ralph Barrett
22
WART CURES
There was a lady here—one thing that they did was tie knots—
every wart you had, they’d tie a knot on a string, and bury the
string. When the string rotted, the warts would go. –Sarah
Griffiths Ennis
One of the other remedies for getting rid of warts was to get an
old maid, if she had a ring on her finger, to get her to rub that on
the wart and that was supposed to make the wart go away as
well. –Peter Lane
There were lots of cures. One of the cures was that you rub fat
pork on the wart and give it to a dog to lick off and that was
supposed to cure the warts. We used to count how many warts
we had and they would get us to go out in the garden get a stick
with that many branches or twigs on it and you would bury that
in the ground and that would cure the warts. –Ruby Rees
Well when I was growing up everybody got warts. How they got
them I don’t know. Probably it was a hygiene issue but pretty well
all kids had warts. We were told you got them from handling
frogs or worms or something like that so I guess it was bacteria
or stuff on those type of animals and insects. But everybody had
warts. There were all kinds of folk ways you supposedly could get
rid of them but the one that I am aware of most is that you cut a
potato in half. You would rub the wart and take that part out in a
garden and bury it behind a tree and three or four days later your
wart was supposed to disappear. Not really sure if it worked that
well or not. –Peter Lane
23
WART CURES
Branch with snail. Courtesy of Pixabay.
24
WART CHARMS
Well Mrs. Roberts, the woman next door, she used to take away
warts. She wouldn’t tell anyone the secret because if she told
everyone the secret it wouldn’t work. –Ruby Rees
I took my son over and it was this elderly lady I suppose she was
seventy some, and she would catch hold of the child’s hand and
convince him that the warts would go away, that it was nothing
serious that it was probably out playing, and all that stuff. His
warts didn’t go away. She lives over in Coley’s Point. Boland.
Marian Boland. That’s what she used to do. She used to have a lot
of customers and maybe it worked because they say that warts
are caused by a nervous condition on some people but my son his
warts were [under his fingertips] so I was thinking that he was
probably out digging and it got there, right?
[My daughter] Mandy had cradle cap so the doctor gave me this
bottle of stuff and it worked like a charm. So I said well maybe if
it worked for that because her head was really bad so I took it and
put it on [my son’s] warts for five or six days. Cradle cap is like
eczema. Same thing as eczema. But the stuff that I used on her
hair I used on his warts and they went away. –Eyvonne Harris
My aunt used to cure warts. You had to go get a snail, get a nail,
nail the snail onto the tree, and when the snail was rotted, your
wart was gone. But she also had a prayer—a wart prayer that she
said over your warts. She never said it out loud. After she said the
prayer over your warts, she’d tell you to go find a snail—I don’t
know how you’d find one in the winter. And nail it to the tree. She
said, “When the snail is rotted, your warts will be gone.” I tried it
once, and my wart went. –Dot O’Brien
25
WART CHARMS
Kim Granter. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
26
WART CHARMS
That’s my only cure, aside from all the regular stuff that people
talk about, like rubbing rings on stuff. However, Loretta did tell
me something that might be interesting. I think she got it from a
lady from Bell Island, whose father had died while she was in the
womb. She was conceived, but not born yet. This woman told—I
think when Loretta saw her, she had a wart. She said, “If you
rub a part of my clothing without my knowing it—if you rub that
wart on part of my clothing without my knowing it, the wart will
disappear.” That was because she was a daughter who had been
born, but had never seen her father. Her father had died while she
was in the womb. I didn’t think to ask if it worked for males, too,
but I assume it would. Now that one I hadn’t heard before. She
could only heal unknowingly. If she knew that you had done it,
then it didn’t work. Sounds pretty good, hey? If it doesn’t work,
she can always say, “Well, I knew you did that.” –Edna Roberts
My grandmother, Patience Crane, that’s my father’s mom she
would put the warts away. I had a big wart on my hand one time.
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll take that wart away. ” She told me to go
out and get a snail, the big snail you get when it rains. It’s under
the rocks. So I went out and got the snail and I came in and she
said “Snail, take the wart, wart, go away. When this snail dies
the wart will go away.” When she read what she had to say she
rubbed the snail over the wart she told me to take that snail and
put it in a bottle and put the cover on it. [With the snail] in a jar
go up in the garden and bury it but don’t tell anybody where you
buried it or it won’t work. Don’t tell anybody where you buried
the snail. So that’s what I did. I took the snail went up in the
garden and buried him. [After] a few days you could see the wart
disappearing. The snail died, see? With the stopper on the snail
27
WART CHARMS
had to perish. The wart went away and I never told anybody up
until this day and I’m seventy two years old and I was only about
maybe thirteen years old then.
Do you remember what she said when she rubbed the snail over
the wart?
Wart, wart go away. Snail, snail take it away. That’s what she
said a few times and rubbed the snail over the wart. Then I
had to take that and bury it and when the snail died the wart
disappeared and that’s what happened to it and I never had a
wart after. –Edward Crane
When I was little I had warts on my hands. Dozens of them
and I think Mom tried compound W and different things that
the doctor gave her and they never went away. My friend Kathy
Robson up the street, her aunt, I think, was married into this
family. I didn’t realize it at the time but he was the man who put
away my warts. He knew my dad from work, he must have said
something about putting away warts and when Dad said that I
had a lot of warts on my hand he said, “Go home and count them
and make sure you count them all because if you don’t count
them all they won’t all go away. I will put them away for her.” So
he came home and I counted the warts and dad went back to work
and told this man and then they didn’t go away and a few months
later he asked dad and he said, no I still had all the warts. So he
came to the house and he stood in the back porch and I went to
the back door and I showed him my hands and he never touched
my hand and I had to count all the warts and I actually missed
one on my right hand and it stayed there for years but within a
28
WART CHARMS
few weeks all the others were gone. I have no explanation, they
just disappeared except the one that I missed. It was probably
there for five or ten years after that. It just eventually went away
on its own. I showed him the front of my hands and the back of
my hands and he said, “Okay. You can forget about them now and
they will go away.” Then they did. –Kim Granter
I don’t remember my friends having warts the same but my hands
were covered. I had them all over my hands and I remember on
this knuckle on my right hand I had a very large, seedy one and
at the time I was taking piano lessons as all my family members
were and sitting at the piano in the evening practicing they were
very visible. Of course going to my piano teacher I was very self
conscious about that. Initially, I know my dad had gone to the drug
store and gotten something to put on them and nothing seemed
to work. We tried some other cures and I’m not sure if these are
from the doctor but one of them involved full strength vinegar
and applying that. There was something that seemed like a stick,
like a matchstick or something, there may have been some sulfur
or something involved. None of that seemed to work and I was
getting pretty upset by this. I don’t remember who but somebody,
probably an older member of the community, somebody told me,
“Why don’t you see Aunt Ermine and ask her to put them away.”
She just lived down the hill and a couple of doors over and so I
thought, “Well what is the etiquette for having your warts put
away what do you have to do?” “Well you have to count them and
then you have to go and ask her, “Will you put my warts away?”.
But you’re not to say thank you.” So it took me a while. I don’t
remember the exact number but I think it was about 142 by the
time I counted every little one that was starting to grow and the
29
WART CHARMS
big ones and pondered and perplexed over whether I should call
this big one one or was it more than one or whatever. So anyway
I was very timid and I went in her house and said, “Aunt Ermine
will you put my warts away?” and she didn’t ask me how many,
she just turned around and looked at me and said, “Yes.” I said,
“Thank you.” and went through the door and then when I got
outside I realized I said thank you and they are not going to go
away. But it was miraculous. They were visibly disappearing
from my hands. I remember it being perhaps a week but it might
have been just slightly longer than that but it was certainly no
longer than that and everything had disappeared. My skin was
perfectly clear and that was it. I haven’t been bothered with them
since. It was pretty neat and there were other people who had
other ways of doing it. My grandmother, who visited often and
who lived with us later on in her life, I remember her saying one
time that another way to do it was to rub salt pork over the warts
and give it to a dog to eat. A friend of mine said that the cure that
she knew of was rubbing half a potato and then burying that and
then as it rotted then the warts would go away. I do remember my
grandmother mentioning that some people used to mark chalk
marks on the back of the stove—so that would have been a wood
stove—as the chalk burned away they would go away. So it was
a matter of a small period of time and if you had a charmer then
that would happen. My grandmother could charm warts but
she said, “No, I can’t do that for you.” I guess being related had
something to do with it but she never did pass on the secret of
how to do it. –Jeanette Russell
30
MEDICINE
31
MIDWIVES
Oh yes! I remember the midwife coming with my younger sis-ter
and that was rather traumatic for me. We were told that
Mrs. Hussey, who was the midwife that would have come and
was well known in the community, I think she was from Tilton,
brought babies in her black bag. That’s how babies arrived in all
our communities. We didn’t have a stork we had Mrs. Hussey.
She came to my mom when my younger sister was born. But that
was it. Not under a cabbage leaf, not being brought by the stork,
but Mrs. Hussey brought babies in her black bag. So she brought
me a baby sister. –Jeanette Russell
I never went to the hospital. I had a midwife, she came from
Tilton. Emily Sheppard’s mother, that’s who born my two
children. –Joyce Chipman
The midwives were usually aunts and passed down through like
that. My mom had a midwife when she had my brother years ago,
when she was in Coley’s Point. Mom was only sixteen and she
had a midwife. That was just somebody in the family. It could’ve
been an aunt or a distant cousin would come there the day or two
days before. –Eyvonne Harris
My brother Raymond had a woman here in Spaniard’s Bay
because he was born right there in that house. That was Aunt
Mary Sheppard. Down in Island Cove, I was born down there and
my sister was born down there, we had a woman who lived next
door to my grandparents and she was a Crane. –Jennie Sheppard
I know one was Mrs. Ella Hussey and another one was Aunt
Sis Gosse.
32
MIDWIVES
Did your family ever employ one of these?
Oh yes. My mother, all of her children were born home by midwife.
Everybody did, you know. Unless there was trouble. They would
all come to the house. –Clarice Adams
Midwives - when I was growing up there was two. Aunt Maggie
Lundrigan and Aunt Sue Sharpe. They were the two midwives
when I was growing up. Aunt Sue Sharpe that’s who was the
midwife when I was born. –Edward Crane
I remember when my brother was born—he was the last baby that
Mom had. He was only probably three pounds. Now you imagine
in them days, having a three pound baby. In the house and not out
in the Janeway, with a machine to put him in. I remember, the first
person that went—he walked down to the priest’s house, and asked
the priest to come up. You know, and he came up, and he baptized
him on the table in case he would die. Then this woman, she was a
war bride. Her name was Morag O’Brien. I think she received the
Order of Canada there, in her later years. She came up and she got
a box, and she lined the box with wad—cotton, all around—and she
put the baby in it, and she put him behind the stove. Like we had an
old-fashioned stove, and there was space behind and that’s where
she put him. And he survived. –Dot O’Brien
Four children in our family had midwifes and my youngest sister
was born in Carbonear hospital which had just newly opened
I think that year previous. That was the common thing in those
days. I was born in ’49 so certainly prior to that and even into the
33
MIDWIVES
‘50s, early ‘50s. I would say by the mid ‘50s it would be rare unless
you were in an isolated area. There was a Mrs. Hussey from Tilton,
and I know my paternal grandmother. She died just before or just
after I was born so I don’t think she had anything to do with my
birth but she was definitely there when my brother was born and
that was in 1947. My dad’s sister who lived in Tilton, I can’t be sure
if she was a midwife, but I know she was called on by a lot of people
and her name was Annie Barrett. She married a Barrett, she was
a Vokey prior to that. I think there was a Mrs. Anthony also but
I can’t be sure. I don’t really remember a whole lot. I do, I mean I
was old enough to remember my three younger sisters being born,
and I remember being in the house. The third one, the last one of
course was born in the hospital, but the other two we would be
told to wait downstairs and mom is having the baby. I don’t recall
it being a big, dramatic type of moment. –Dianne Carr
Were there ever any midwives around?
Yes. Well, we were all born with midwives, I mean mom never
went to the hospital to have either one of us. But I can remember
as a little girl, seeing this lady—I knew her, she lived down the
street—Mrs. Janes. Once in awhile I’d see her walk up the road,
and after awhile she’d come down. Then the next day I’d find out
wherever she was going, they had a baby. You know? Of course,
I didn’t ask any questions. This went on for a few years. I was
connecting her with the baby, not realizing she was a midwife.
Then as I got older I caught on. Now my sister’s four years
younger than me, but at that time when the baby was about to be
born, my grandmother or my aunt or someone would come and
34
MIDWIVES
Medical bag.
35
MIDWIVES
Courtesy of Pixabay.
36
MIDWIVES
take me to their place until the baby was born. I didn’t stay in
the house at all. Then I had a brother after that, he was eleven
years in difference, and the same thing happened. They didn’t
keep me in the house, they just went. At that time, you didn’t talk
too much about babies or how they were born or where they came
from, you know, you noticed if somebody got big, but our parents
didn’t really sit down and explain things to us. A lot of it we had
to figure out on our own, you know. I put having the baby with
Mrs. Janes, you know what I mean? Then when she’d come, and
somebody’d say, “Come on with me now, for a little while,” and I’d
go on, and when I’d come back there’d be a baby in the house.
Did you have some theories about Mrs. Janes?
Oh then—as far as I was concerned in the beginning, when we
were really small, we used to think Mrs. Janes brought the baby
there. You must remember, our parents didn’t wear tight clothes,
you know. They had these smock-type things, you would hardly
notice them.
So you didn’t know that you were going to have a new sibling?
No. But when my brother was born I was catching on, I was a bit
older, and I understood then, you know what I mean? Now, we
weren’t taught in school or anything like that. Somebody would tell
me that Mom was going to have a baby, and I understood it then—
that when they took me, I knew when I came home there was going
to be a baby there. I guess they didn’t want you [around] if there was
any confusion or anything in the house. –Patricia Rodgers
37
MIDWIVES
A midwife didn’t just come for the birth, she would’ve helped
after the birth as well. I wasn’t aware of before the birth but they
didn’t just attend the birth, they would’ve helped out at the house
as well. –Jeanette Russell
They would come to the house a week prior to due time and they
would help with the housework and the cleaning and all this
stuff. Then when the baby was going to be ready to come that’s
what they would do. They would make sure that the afterbirth
and everything was cleaned up. Then they would stay another
week or so to make sure. Back then when they fed the child all
they had, well if it wasn’t breast feeding, they had these clothes
they used to have made up and sewed like a funnel with a very
thin little tight top on it and this is where would put it would be a
mixture of bread if they had sugar they would use sugar, be just
a mixture of bread and milk and that’s what they would let the
child suck on. –Eyvonne Harris
My grandmother was a midwife for years and that’s my mother’s
mother. They said at one time she was a midwife for years and
years. I imagine it was probably a midwife or my grandmother
came out when we were born but I don’t know. But my grandmother
in Tilton was a midwife for years and years.
Did she get paid for her work?
Not that I’m aware of. –Berdina Gosse
They’d take the baby, and they’d put this belly band on, right
around the baby, right tight. Then they’d take a blanket and put it
38
underneath the baby. They’d pull the foot part up, and they’d pull
each side over as tight as they could, and put a couple of pins in it
so the baby couldn’t move its feet or anything. They’d leave it like
that for a week or two before they’d take it out, and then they’d
take the belly band off and that. I don’t know why they did that, I
don’t know. They must have had some reason.
Do you remember if the midwife received any payment or any
bartering or anything?
I really don’t know, but if she did, it was very little, because nobody
had much to give her. Now, I would say it would be something
from their cellar, or vegetables, or if they had some sheep or some
goats to kill, or something like that, they’d give it to her. In later
years, she probably did. She probably did get a bit of money, you
know what I mean, but it wouldn’t be very much, I tell you. But
yup, she delivered a lot of babies. A lot. And I never heard of any of
them passing away at the time, you know? Probably they wouldn’t
tell us or something like that, you know. –Patricia Rodgers
MIDWIVES
39
DOCTORS
If people wanted to go to a doctor anywhere most of the time they
would have to walk to Harbour Grace or Bay Roberts. Mainly
Harbour Grace to Doctor Cron. –Clarice Adams
I think we had one doctor and that was Doctor Axon. He’s dead for
years gone by but that’s who we had to go to. One doctor. We had one
doctor. It’s not like it is now. I can remember we used to have to pay
to go see the doctor. It wasn’t too many that went to the doctor then
because you used to have to go and pay the doctor. –Pearl Drover
Doctor Cron in Harbour Grace he came on horse and sleigh in the
winter. Travelled that way in the early days. Later he got a car but
he belonged to Harbour Grace. He was a character he was, a real
character. He was a good doctor. He did a lot of work in his day
I tell you. If you wanted a doctor and we didn’t have telephones
then you would put out a white flag on the fence and when he was
going along if he saw the white flag anywhere he would stop and
go it and see who was sick. –Ruby Rees
Dad said that when he had his tonsils out the doctor would come to
the house. They would [go to] each little community. The children
were compelled to get [their] tonsils out. I don’t know what they
used to use as a deadener but dad said they used to put it on a
feather and put it down their throat. Then they would hold them
down on the table and reach in and snip their tonsils out. Everyone
who got the deadener was on the same feather. –Eyvonne Harris
I can remember in the 60s the big thing was to get your tonsils
out and I can remember six of us being in the Janeway and it was
such a thing to get your tonsils out because then you got to have
40
DOCTORS
Coke and ice cream. That’s what
I remember, them bringing in the
cases of Coke the night before
and the excitement, “We’re going
to get our tonsils out tomorrow
and we’re going to get Coke! We’re
going to go under anesthetic and
we might probably die but we’re
going to get Coke.” That’s all we
could think about. There were
cases of Coke because they would
give you Coke after to make your
throat feel better hence creating
an entire generation of type two
diabetes. –Deborah Noel
There was a case where this
family—the lady of the house was
having problems with varicose
veins, and they used to bleed. She was always bothered with that.
One particular time, the doctor who lived in Harbour Grace was
up to the community, because somebody had called him. So when
the Mercer family heard that, the husband went over to that house
and asked if the doctor would come over and see his wife. And he
did. When he checked her over, he said to her husband, “What you
should do is get some spider webs.” You’d go into the old barns, and
everybody had a barn, and up in the beams there’s lots of spider
webs, like wool. “Just get some of those webs, and put it on her
legs and then put a bandage around, and that’ll help to prevent
the bleeding.” That got around, you know, because when he used
Ralph Barrett. 2017. Photo by
Andrea McGuire.
41
DOCTORS
up, over a period of time, what was in his own barn, then he went
in somebody else’s barn. Hence he got known as John Spider.
–Ralph Barrett
There were two doctors and they lived side by side. There was
Dr. Drover and Dr. Avery. Dr. Avery seemed to be the kinder one
so if we got the opportunity to visit him that seemed to be a
better thing. I was never a big fan of going to the doctor because
I always seemed to have either medicine that I didn’t care for or
having to have a needle. That’s when he would actually come to
the house. Dr. Drover was gruffer, and I guess he wasn’t going to
put up with my nonsense. They were in Bay Roberts and they
would come for a visit when necessary. The needle that I had,
I guess, was some sort of antibiotic. Mom used to say I started
screaming when he came around the point, which would’ve
been where the Legion is today, and of course that would’ve been
almost a mile away but visible from our house. I was looking
through the window for him but when his car came around the
point I would start screaming at that point and didn’t stop till it
was over. Was not a big fan of needles. –Jeanette Russell
HOME REMEDIES
43
HOME REMEDIES
My Grandmother, Mary Jane Gosse, had a ‘cure’ for migraine
headaches. I’m familiar with it having been her patient several
times. The treatment was this. A dark green cabbage leaf was
soaked in strong vinegar, place on your forehead and carefully
tied on with a sock, nothing else, and kept there until the
headache was gone. My guess is that the stinging of the strong
vinegar hurt more and the headache was soon forgotten.
–Wesley Gosse, Stories and Stuff Spaniards Bay, page 31
Patricia Rodgers. Photo by Andrea McGuire. 2017.
44
HOME REMEDIES
The only way to cure frostbite is to rub cold water on it. Not warm
water—cold water. –Edward Crane
I had fevers a lot and mom just used cold water, and cold cloths.
Anything to bring down the fever. –Deborah Noel
We used to use buttercups put them underneath your chin to see
if you liked butter. –Shelia White
They would pop out their own teeth. I know that because Dad
told me that Pop took out his jaw tooth when he had a bad
tooth. –Eyvonne Harris
For heartburn they used to take some sort of solution. My fa-ther
would as he used to have heartburn. I don’t know what it
was but we weren’t allowed to touch it anyway. It was liquid
and it fizzes a little bit whatever it was and made little bubbles
come up. –Jennie Sheppard
I know often when we were sick—I don’t know if this was a
trick—but we would often get tea with bread in it or toast and
they would mix it up I know when
my dad was sick mom used to make
him pap. They used to call it, pap. Or
it could be cookies and tea. But tea
I think was a remedy for anything.
–Deborah Noel
[My nan] would put packing up in
your nose. You would take a bit of
Evening Telegram (St. John's,
N.L.), 1900-10-05 Page 37.
45
HOME REMEDIES
sack cloth and dip it in either hot or cold water. I think she used
cold water but I’m not sure. Just make it up into a little ball and
put that up in your nose and put your head back. Eventually [the
nosebleed] would stop and if it didn’t stop then you definitely had
something more wrong with you. –Eyvonne Harris
If we had a headache I remember mom putting on the vinegar
and brown paper. They would take the piece of brown paper and
they would spot it with vinegar and then put it on your head and
then you would have to lay flat on the daybed in the kitchen and
you would lay flat on that till you would say, “Oh my headache is
getting better.” Sometimes of course you would say it to get that
off your head as well. I think it did [work]! Really I think it did.
–Jennie Sheppard
Tonic—wormwood. My grandmother had a patch of wormwood up
in her garden, and every fall she used to make a tonic from it. She
used to put it in bottles. If you got down in the winter time, she would
give you this wormwood, it was called. Like if your appetite got low,
or if you know how sometimes you’re feeling blue? She’d give you
this as a pick-me-up. Kind of a pick-me-up. A tonic. –Dot O’Brien
[Nan] used to do some weird things that woman. Anytime anyth-ing
was hurt she would bandage you up so that you couldn’t move
it. Probably it was the same thing as a cast. If you hurt your should-er
or your elbow. I remember I had my elbow hurt and she would
just wrap it and wrap it and wrap it and then you would keep it like
that for three days. If you sprain your wrist or something like that
you just go and get one of those bandages and put it on and three
days after it’s irritating but it is usually fine. –Eyvonne Harris
46
HOME REMEDIES
Now this is a different one. If you had an earache—this is way,
way back now, first when I was a really little girl, because I
had forgotten about it—they would take a little bit of wadding,
we’d call it, out of the aspirin bottles—I don’t even know if we
could buy it, so if you had any wadding, you held onto it. For an
earache, you’d take a little bit of wadding, and they’d get you
to pee on it. Then they’d stick that in your ear. Now we didn’t
know if the peeing on it warmed the wadding, or what it did. Not
everybody did it, but my grandmother did it with us. It seemed
after a while to stop it. Now, I don’t know. Maybe we just told
her, because we didn’t want to do it. It was kind of gross. But
she just said, “Now, just a little small drop,” and she said, “It
makes it nice and warm.” Now, maybe she was only telling us
that, I don’t know where that came from. There were a couple
of families around—when we’d get talking, we’d say, “Did you
ever pee on the, you know,” and someone said, “Yes, and I hated
that,” you know, but as we got a little bit older she stopped it,
because she knew we weren’t going to do it anyway, I suppose.
But that’s way, way, way back. –Patricia Rodgers
Way back when there was no such thing as going to a store to buy
rubber clothes or anything like that. Women would have a sack
of flour—100 pound cloth bags—or sugar, same thing. Once they
emptied the bag, then the bag would be washed and hung out to
dry. They always had a source of cod liver oil at the fishing stage,
in a barrel. They’d go to the fishing stage and get a bucketful of
cod liver oil. Once the cloth was dry on the line, they would take it
in, cut out the pattern for a jacket, and they’d cut out the pattern
for a pair of pants, for the fisherman. When that was all sewed
together, then the bucket of cod liver oil would be put on the stove
47
HOME REMEDIES
and brought up to a simmer or low boil, then the jacket would be
submerged into the bucket of oil. Then it would be taken outdoors,
taken out of the bucket, and hung on the clothesline. Same thing
with the pants. When it was totally dried, then the jacket and the
pants were totally waterproof. That was oil clothes, that was what
it was called. But the edge of the sleeve would sometimes cause
a little bit of soreness around the wrist, by the edge of the sleeve.
That was called waterpups. It would get infected sometimes, a
little bit of a lump, so they had to wear a chain on their wrist, and
the chain rubbing back and forth would rub the tops off the little
sore, and it would then get better. –Ralph Barrett
Vinegar. Courtesy of Pixabay.
48
SORE THROAT
I grew up with rheumatic fever which is caused by the strep virus
so I have memories of having a sore throat for years. I remember
being fed a lot of eggnog and custards but I don’t actually
remember anything being given to me. –Deborah Noel
If you had a sore throat you would put a teaspoon of salt into
about half a glass of lukewarm water and you gargle your throat
about three or four times a day like that. That seemed to be pretty
effective because it took all the old gunk out of your throat. It did
help to clear your throat up. –Peter Lane
My nan would steep the dandelion tops. She would steep those
and she would put molasses, sweet molasses. When she made
the poultice she would have had to use the dark molasses. That
would be for if you had a sore throat or something like that. I
remember she used to go out and snip them. I don’t know what
else she used to do it with. –Eyvonne Harris
I remember my mother in law saying that they used kerosene and
molasses. Many people made it into a candy—they would boil it up
and that was supposed to be good for coughs and sore throats. A
friend of mine his mother would make up a concoction of kerosene
and molasses and put in a bottle of aspirin and make it into a
candy. They swore by that. She lived in Rocky Harbour down on
the Northern Peninsula and apparently she was well known for
that concoction and people liked it too, so I would think there was
probably more molasses than kerosene. –Jeanette Russell
For gargling I know we would use salt water. I often had sore
throats. As a matter of fact as a child I had strep throat and so I
49
would need to have visits from the
doctor. I dreaded to have a needle.
But one of the cures that my mom
always had on hand for me was to
steep out blackcurrant jam. Until
recently, and I am talking within
the past year or so, I would never not
have a jar of blackcurrant jar in the
fridge. Not for jam purposes to eat,
but to always have on hand for sore
throats. It was good and it was one
of the few things that was agreeable
to take because of the jam and the
high sugar content. It would be
steeped out like tea and you would
sip the hot liquid and that was be
very soothing. I believe there is
actually some real health benefit
to that. I think there is actually
something in the blackcurrant that
does actually work to sooth sore
throats; it is not just a folk tale. Like
many folk cures it does have a basis.
–Jeanette Russell
Dandelion tops. Courtesy
of Pixabay.
SORE THROAT
Bayer Aspirin. Western Star
(Corner Brook, N.L.),
1928-03-07 Page 4.
50
COLD AND FLU
For colds and stuff for sore throats sometimes you would boil up
a little bit of molasses with sugar and mix that up with a warm
cup of tea with a bit of orange or lemon or something like that in
it and drink that. –Peter Lane
I remember in my house, that if you had a cold on your chest,
mom would always rub Vicks, heat Vicks in a saucer, tea cup
saucer, on the stove, lay it on the stove, and the Vicks would melt,
and when it was still warm, you’d rub it on your chest and around
your neck. –Judy Symonds
I know one remedy they used to use was called ‘senna’ because
my mother used to make it for me and it was the most terrible
thing ever you drank in your life. [Laughter] Oh I tell you. It was
terrible. All I know is she steeped it like tea. It was something
like a tea. Where it came from—I don’t know. –Clarice Adams
Whenever we had trouble breathing, [my mother] would boil hot
water and put in some mint or eucalyptus leaves or some such.
We would take a towel and put it around the bowl, and we would
breathe in the fumes. This would help to clear the sinuses and
clear out our nose. –Sally Peddle
I remember we got cod liver oil every day every one of us kids
every day. That was for colds and stuff like that. Mom would use
the real cod liver oil and not the capsules. We would all have to
stand up and take a spoonful of it and she would squirt a quarter
of an orange in our mouth. But my grandfather used to drink cod
liver oil, just drink it from the bottle. –Deborah Noel
51
COLD AND FLU
Another cure that I remember specifically, because my brother
had the croup—what they called croup in the ‘40s and ‘50s. He
would have a mustard plaster put on his chest to try and stop the
coughing. The mustard plaster, I believe, was made with flour
in an old flannel shirt. The flour was cooked, and then mum put
in the mustard—either mustard seed, or prepared mustard, and
mixed it up, and the heat, I guess, from the warmed flour must
have been kept on the chest to help him. –Sally Peddle
Vicks Vaporub. Western Star (Corner
Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 20.
Mustard seeds. Courtesy of Pixabay.
52
STOMACH ISSUES
Fruit sauce was a wonderful thing [for stomach sickness]. Alka
Seltzer they would probably call it now. –Ruby Rees
They used to give them castor oil every night. My father and
them they used to get a spoonful of castor oil. That was probably
for their stomachs. To regulate their bowels. –Eyvonne Harris
If you had an upset stomach, it was baking soda and warm water.
Just a little, about half a teaspoon of baking soda and warm water,
maybe about an inch at the bottom of the glass, well mixed, and it
would either make you sick to your stomach, or you’d bring up gas
from your stomach, and then you’d be better. So it worked either
way. –Sally Peddle
I know my grandmother went a lot by ginger and so does my
mom. Just mix maybe a teaspoon of ginger with boiling water,
add a bit of brown sugar or something to it and that would settle
your stomach down. Also black currant jam was a common one.
Same thing, just put maybe a tablespoon of black currant jam,
fill it up with hot water and sip on it. That would certainly help.
I’m sure as kids growing up we would have had aspirin because
that’s been around for a long, long time. I don’t think we had
Tylenol or any of those things but for sure aspirin was available.
So you would be given aspirin if you had a headache or a fever or
something of that sort. –Dianne Carr
I don’t remember having too many problems [with a bad stom-ach]
but my grandmother did and one of the things that she
would love to have would be a cup of ginger. So we would use the
ground ginger spice, and sugar, and boiling water and she would
53
STOMACH ISSUES
Ginger root. Courtesy of Pixabay.
Juniper. Courtesy of Pixabay.
54
STOMACH ISSUES
Black currant. Courtesy of Pixabay.
55
STOMACH ISSUES
sip that. Now as a child I always thought that that was a pleasant
drink for her rather than having a cup of tea and I can remember
making it for her. Apparently I was able to get the ratio of ginger
to sugar down pretty well. But I’m sure now that it was probably
a stomach upset and I know she took milk of magnesia which she
told us was for a bad stomach but I think actually it’s a laxative.
I’m not sure about that but she took a lot of milk of magnesia and
ginger. –Jeanette Russell
[My father] would go in when he was cutting his wood—juniper
grew up in there—so he would bring the juniper out. He’d get a
brown paper bag, and put the juniper down in it, and close it off
and you’d hang it up somewhere so it would dry it out. Then they
used it the same as you would tea leaves. You’d steep it in the tea.
If you had a pain, or an ache, or an upset stomach, that’s what
you had, juniper. I kind of liked it. From what I remember—you
had a tea strainer, we always had a tea strainer—and you’d put
so many leaves in it, and then as you put it in you could see how
strong it was, so then you could take it away and put more water
in or whatever. They used to put a little bit of sugar sometimes,
but that would cure you if you had an upset stomach or pain in
your stomach. –Patricia Rodgers
56
ALCOHOL
They’d give you a little sip of brandy or whiskey if you had an
upset stomach, you know, that kind of thing. That was quite
common. And probably the reason why I like whiskey today.
[laughs] –Judy Symonds
When I was a teenager and suffering from menstruation cramps
we were sometimes given a hot toddy, even then as a young child
and that did help somewhat. So that was kind of special. A little
bit of whisky, sugar, and a lot of hot water. –Jeanette Russell
Sometimes if you had a colicky baby my grandmother always
used to say you put a teaspoon of whisky and mix it up with a
little bit of sugar and feed that to the baby and it would help
the baby settle down a little bit. A colicky baby is a baby that
cries constantly no matter what you do. You try to comfort it
or soothe it or whatever it still keeps on crying. It can be pretty
stressful, especially on a young mother sometimes that she’s
not getting enough sleep and then you have a baby that is crying
24/7. –Peter Lane
I remember my nan, and she told me her mother, they always
made their wine, usually blueberry. Even the children before
they would go to bed in the nighttime, you could have a hot
toddy. When I used to stay with her I would have a hot toddy
every night and pass out, cold junk. It probably relaxed your
nerves. –Eyvonne Harris
Well, you know, [alcohol] was given to children. It would be just
a little bit on a teaspoon, you know, or a small spoon, a little
coffee spoon, that kind of thing, I can remember. It might have
57
ALCOHOL
been mixed with a little bit of jam. Because when they would give
kids say aspirin, years ago, nobody would swallow an aspirin, and
kids were given usually half an aspirin. So they’d mash it up on the
spoon, and they’d mix a bit of jam or something with it, and then it
was more palatable to take. It disguised it, right. –Judy Symonds
I know you take the raisins with the gin. Could you tell me ab-out
that?
I went to something here at the theatre, on my own, and I was
sitting next to somebody I didn’t know, a woman. We got talking,
Judy Symonds holding her gin soaked raisins. 2017. Photo by Andrea McGuire.
58
ALCOHOL
and I had said to her—
and probably rubbing my
knee—I said I had a bad
knee, and she said, “You got
arthritis?” I said, “Yeah.”
She said, “Gin and raisins
is the answer. I’ve been
taking it for ten years.” So
I said, “What do you do?”
On the other side of me
was another woman. She
said, “Yeah, I take them
too!” I did look it up, and
didn’t do anything, and
then probably six or eight months ago, I was talking to a cousin
of mine who lives up in Bay Roberts. I was telling her that I had
some trouble with my knee, arthritis. She said, “Did you ever try
the gin and raisins?” I said, “No, but somebody told me about
it.” “Well,” she said, “it works for me.” I still didn’t do anything
until now, my knee is getting worse. I looked up the recipe just to
make sure. It’s not much of a recipe. It just said to take whatever
amount of raisins that you wanted, in a container, and cover them
with gin. My cousin said it should be Gillray’s Gin, or something,
like the more expensive gin as opposed to the cheaper gin, and I
only found out that some of the cheaper gins are flavoured with
juniper extract, whereas the more expensive gins are made
straight from juniper. But I just took whatever gin I had there
that I would drink with a tonic, you just let them soak until the
raisins soak up all the gin. Some people take them two or three
times of the day, but most people that I know take them in the
Gin soaked raisins. 2017. Photo by Andrea
McGuire.
59
ALCOHOL
morning or when they’re going to bed in the night, right. It said to
take nine. That’s it. My cousin said it worked for her right away,
but I’ve only taken it a couple of times.
Does everybody take nine?
Yup. Anyone who does it says, “Don’t take anymore.” So if you
slip and take ten, I don’t know what happens. [laughter] I take
them out, I count out the nine, and I got a little small dish, and
I just put them in that so I’ll remember to take them. I’ve got to
make sure I tell my kids this, in case somebody asks them down
the road, “Well my mother ate raisins soaked in gin.” [laughs]
–Judy Symonds
Black and White Scotch Whisky. Western Star
(Corner Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 17.
60
HANGOVERS
Hangovers? An egg and milk mix that together that would be a
good dose of it and then have another beer in top of it when you
get up in the morning. That’s about all I know. I always used to
hear, “Have another beer.” I mean if you got drunk last night the
last thing you want to face is another beer. –Eyvonne Harris
I can remember my mother got drunk once in her life and the next
morning when she had a hangover it was my sister’s wedding the
day after and I can remember my father giving me some money
to go to the store to buy my mom a pop and I can remember
coming back with it thinking my mother sinned, because I was
in my really religious phase, and she gets rewarded! I remember
thinking should I morally let my mother have this? Or should I
drink it? –Deborah Noel
Baking soda. Courtesy of Pixabay. Butter. Courtesy of Pixabay.
61
BURNS & ITCHES
There was a lot of stinging nettles when we were growing up,
and would they ever itch. Oh, I hated it when I fell in the stinging
nettles. My parents used to get some baking soda and put a little
drop of water in it, and just rub that over where—because they
used to come out in little bubbles—rub the baking soda over it,
and that would stop the sting. But boy, would they ever sting. I’d
fall in them once a week, I’m sure I would. –Patricia Rodgers
There was a lady here called Mrs. Sis Walsh—she’s long dead
now—but she used to make a salve for boils, for burns, for sores.
Everybody went to her. It was called “Mrs. Sis Walsh’s Salve.”
Everybody went—not only the people from Cape Broyle, they
came from other communities for it, too. I have no idea what she
put in it. I can barely remember her. She was an older woman
when we were teenagers. But when she died, her son kept making
it—he was a bachelor and he was a very good friend of Dad’s. He
kept making the salve, but I have no idea what she put in it. But
was that ever popular. –Dot O’Brien
If there was a burn, if somebody burned their hand or something
on fire or the stove, the common thing was to put butter on it
which was certainly as we know now not the good thing to do. Or
lard of some type and then bandage it up. Baking soda was and
still is a great thing to use for many, many things. So baking soda
baths if somebody had a rash or chicken pox or anything that was
itching, if you had a sunburn, baking soda was always a go to for
those kinds of things. –Dianne Carr
Rub it with butter. My father-in-law had a forge, he was a
wheelwright so I’m sure there were burns quite a bit and sparks
62
BURNS & ITCHES
or whatever so putting butter on was a very common practice
for burns. I don’t know what they would have done for sunburn.
I don’t think we burned as easily back in the day. It seemed like
you would be out there all day and you would be trying to get
tanned so you would be coating yourself with oils hoping that
you would be turning brown but that never worked for it. It was
always burn, peel, be white again and maybe burn again if you
decided to stay outside. –Jeanette Russell
63
POULTICE
Bread poultice was used for everything. If you had a splinter
or anything they would wrap your finger up into it over night.
–Nathan Barrett
Growing up, I was susceptible to styes. I can remember my mom
using her wedding ring and crossing the stye—I don’t know how
many times, and I don’t know if that did anything—and also putting
a poultice—you used poultices for a lot of things. –Judy Symonds
Nathan and Margaret Barrett. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
64
POULTICE
I do remember poultice for a burn. It’s funny I asked my mom
about that and she doesn’t remember [what it was made of]. She
said something like warm bread and that. But I remember burning
my hand on the stove and having the marks of the stove and mom
using bread and some other stuff I think. Dried mustard, maybe?
Wrapping it around my hand and I don’t have any marks. I don’t
even remember any pain. –Deborah Noel
Festering—as far as I know, it would get infected, it would be red—
you know … basically, it got infected, and mom would know that it
wasn’t healing over or, you know, knitting together, so you’d put
a poultice on it and it would draw out the infection. You probably
only had to do that once or twice. You’d put it on and they didn’t
cover it with gauze and stuff like that, it was usually flannelette,
that was a wonderful thing. I can see mom now: they would tie it
around, and then they would tear it—so it would tear down, and
then they’d use these two shorter strings to tie. –Judy Symonds
I [had] a friend whose mother was into folk remedies and when
we were in university together she had a problem under her arm.
She was talking to her mom and her mom said, “Now you know
you have to put a bread poultice on that.” She said, “Mom these
are old folk remedies. I’m sure the doctor can find something
for this.” So off she went to the doctor in town and she went in
to see him and he looked at her and he said, “Do you know how
to make a bread poultice?” [Laughter] So that is what she used
and it was effective. I can’t ever remember having one myself
but I do know my mother in law, she did that a lot. That was a
common thing for her. –Jeanette Russell
65
POULTICE
Well that’s the problem you tell the doctors about the home
remedies you used then and they would laugh at you. I’ll give you
for instance one time here when Doctor O’Byrne was out in this
clinic and I was after cutting my toenails and my big toenail I
cut it in until it went to the quick and it got infected. It wasn’t
getting any better so I decided to see Doctor O’Byrne. When
I went out he gave me some pills to take but they didn’t do any
good. So I decided to make a bread poultice, put sugar in it and
do up my toe and let it stay on overnight. So that’s what I did. The
next morning when I got up and took the poultice off my toe it
was after breaking and all the inflammation came out. A couple
of days after that he told me to come back in two or three days if
it was no better so when I went back I had my toe cured. I did it
myself. “So Mrs. Drover,” he said, “how did you do that?” I said, “I
made a bread poultice and put it on my toe before I went to bed.”
He said, “What’s that? I haven’t heard tell of that.” “Doctor,” I
said, “this old remedy we used years gone by when anybody had
a cut or anyone had an infection we couldn’t afford to run to a
doctor.” He couldn’t get over that. –Pearl Drover
They put molasses into it too. My dad used to make it. Dad made
it for Mom when she had her leg infected. That’s what they used
to use. Boil a bit of bread, mix it up with molasses and put that
on and it would draw it out. If you had an infection it would
draw it out. –Eyvonne Harris
They used to use a lot of things. Like when you were talking
about the mustard. That’s what nan used to put on. I was over to
her place once and I had my ribs hurt and I don’t know why she
66
POULTICE
packed me in with mustard and bread and wrapped me up in a
big old half a sheet. –Eyvonne Harris
Well I took a piece of white bread, plain white bread, and I boiled
the kettle and I boiled the bread in a dish and when boiled to get
the yeast and that out of it I strained it. I squeezed the water out
of it. Then I put a bit of sugar in it. I put it in a cloth and I stuck
it on my toe. It worked, cured my toe! Doctor O’Byrne couldn’t
get over what a bread poultice could do on your skin. He was
dumbfounded. –Pearl Drover
That would’ve just been white bread, broken up and put into
a bowl with boiling water and it had to be applied hot. So you
White bread. Courtesy of Pixabay.
67
POULTICE
would get it to a consistency where I guess you could get a ball
made out of it so it would be very hot and maybe because of the
malleability of the bread you could put it wherever it needed to go
and the heat would draw out the substance of a boil or whatever
was there that was causing the infection or whatever. So that
would be the use of bread poultice. –Jeanette Russell
Well poultices were, I guess people made up poultices in different
ways and some people had, just used like a flour and water almost
like a paste and they may have added other things to it I wouldn’t
really begin to think what they – some people used to call them
mustard plasters and I think those were like actually mustard,
probably they used, I suppose they could have used vinegar I
suppose to some extent that would be stinging, so I can almost see
that happening maybe to draw out the infection. –Dianne Carr
As far as I can remember, it was bread and water or milk—some
liquid—not alcohol, one thing they didn’t put alcohol in. It was just
a paste—and I don’t think there was any other herb or anything,
that was all. As that dried, it drew out any infection, or if there
was any pus or anything, that drew it out. If you had a cut, you’d
clean it and put some iodine on it, and if it festered up, which was
the term—they’d put a poultice on it, and that would draw out the
bad stuff. –Judy Symonds
How long would you leave it on for?
It would depend, you know. Sometimes it would dry out a little
bit and it would become uncomfortable. Sometimes you’d have
68
POULTICE
it on for hours, and sometimes they’d put it on before you went to
bed. They’d look at it, and they’d see how bad it was, or if it needed
anything, so that depended on how long we had to keep it on. I
hated it. –Patricia Rodgers
My grandmother—I remember one time. I was at a birthday party,
and I spilled a cup of boiling hot tea right here on my leg. I had on
some kind of pants, and I had to get that off. I went down to my
grandmother. I was crying with the pain. My grandmother had a
barrel of lime out in the stable. It was used to do the lathes. It was
called whitewash. They used to do the lathes with it every summer,
and their houses. It would peel off during the winter, so it had to be
redone every spring. Your house, or your lathes—your fence. And
she said to me, “Honey, I’ll tell you what you’ll do now to cure that.”
She said, “You go out now and get the water,”—because the lime
used to settle to the bottom, and the water was on top. She said,
“You go out and get some of that lime water that’s on top of the lime
barrel out there.” Everybody had a lime barrel in them days. I went
out and got it and brought it in. And she made a poultice. Piece of
cloth, and she soaked it in the lime water. She laid it on my leg. It
was a really big burn. And when she laid it on my leg, I thought I
was going to die. Oh, what a pain. When the pain went away, that
was it. It never pained after, and it healed up. I couldn’t believe it. A
terrific pain when she put it on, but it worked. –Dot O’Brien
69
CUTS
FRANKUM -- It’s the solidified, pale pink dried up tree sap that
accumulated usually on the tree knots and where the branches
have been cut. It was a brittle and extremely hard substance,
glassy in appearance. This was a special ‘chewing’ gum and had
a flavour of the wood it came from with a mixture of wintergreen.
The first half hour or so was pure jaw labour. After that the texture
changed somewhat and you could chew the frankum endlessly.
It had its own special quality too -- it kept your teeth squeaky
clean. –Wesley Gosse, Stories and Stuff (II), Spaniard’s Bay
NL, page 31.
I’ve heard of people getting sap off a tree. Myrrh. If there was a cut,
you’d put tree sap on the incision. It would act like glue. Mostly I
would think it would be [from] fir [trees]. –Ralph Barrett
They used to use cobwebs if you had a cut. Mom told me she
had her finger cut and nan went out and got all the cobwebs
out of the corners to put on it and apparently that would hold it
together. –Eyvonne Harris
Some people used to use fat pork. Scald the fat pork and put it
on their cuts. That’s like if you had warts on your hands you
could use fat pork and put it on your hands. Fat pork boiled out
with butter would cure the works. I’ve heard a lot of people tell
that. –Pearl Drover
A lot of times some of the older people would sew it on their own.
Sew it together with whatever they used to use. They also used to
chew tobacco to put on it so it wouldn’t bleed more until they got
to a doctor. There wasn’t many hospitals then. You would hardly
70
CUTS
get to a hospital because you had to go to St. John’s then. Not like
it is today. The Carbonear hospital wasn’t there. –Clarice Adams
Turpentine, of course. That cured everything. I mean if you got a
cut—if we cut ourselves when we were young, Dad went right to
the tree. Broke the blister, and got the turpentine.
Do you know what kind of tree?
It wasn’t spruce—var, I guess. Because there’s no bubbles in
spruce. I think the bubbles are in the var. –Dot O’Brien
Sap also know as turpentine, or myrrh. Courtesy of Pixabay.
71
CUTS
When I think about cuts I know that a lot of people used the sap
from trees. Some people referred to it as myrrh so that would’ve
been from spruce or fir trees. I remember my dad telling a story
of him having a bad cut when he was young and they used flour.
So he had gone I think to a neighbour’s home and they put on a
handful of flour and the blood still came through and it was
applied three times and eventually that was fine. So I guess
whatever you had on hand that you thought would work. So that
was a good one. I think that would work - I think that still would
work. Although we don’t have to do that now. –Jeanette Russell
Cobwebs. Courtesy of Pixabay.
72
LICE
My mother would keep us right clean and that’s what lice would
go for. Anyone clean. I remember one time I picked up lice then
they had [to get] the fine tooth comb and get a piece of white paper
and comb it out of your, and when they combed them they would
kill them with the back of their thumb. –Edward Crane
The fine toothed comb was the first defence for that. So you
would have to sit there for a long period of time and your hair
washed and then combed through to take the nits away. If that
were the case. I can remember going on holiday to Bell Island to
visit my cousins and coming home with them and having my hair
cut. We all had long hair then and so my hair got a bowl shape. I
can remember my dad cutting my hair and I think that may have
been the first time I had short hair then and I was probably five
at the time, maybe seven. It was a regular occurrence. If you were
scratching, you were going to have your head checked because
you had a big family, and things spread. –Jeanette Russell
Head lice, that was a common, common problem. It still is of
course. It always has been in the schools. Mom would put brown
paper or newspaper on the floor and we would sit on a chair and
she would brush all our hair up over our heads and down over our
heads and a fine, fine tooth comb. It was this powder this kind of
really smelly type of powder and that would sprinkle in your hair
and then she would leave that for a while I guess to kill the nits, to
kill the lice. Then you would comb them out. You would see them
fall out on the paper. We were always forewarned: Don’t sit next
by such and such because they have lice. Don’t put on anybody
else’s hats and keep your hair up. We would get haircuts by mom
and dad, you would sit on the chair and just get your haircut and
73
LICE
that was it there was no picking out what hairstyle you wanted.
I mean if the bowl fit on your head and you cut around the bowl
that’s what you got. That’s what everybody had to do. We rinsed
our hair too. I think vinegar was used quite a bit in those days
because it was easy to get and pretty inexpensive. –Dianne Carr
Mecca Ointment advertisement. The old time songs
and poetry of Newfoundland. Doyle, Gerald S. 1940.
PRACTICAL RECIPES
& HOUSEHOLD
PRODUCTS
75
WALLPAPER PASTE
Wallpaper paste. Mix up flour into a paste and place it on what they
call sheeting paper then and stick it on the wall! –Mike Whalen
That was just flour and water and just make it thick and then
mom would put it on the back of her paper and when we got older
we would have to help her till she got it stuck on and you would
have to try to keep it on until it got hard enough. That was first
when we were young but after that there was already pasted and
wet paper. –Jennie Sheppard
Wallpaper paste, I can remember that plain, I mean—years ago,
before Christmas everybody painted. You’d go in a house and
you’d smell paint. That was the thing to do, or you’d put a new bit
of wallpaper on or something, so that was the kind of paste that
we used, just a bit of flour and water.
Why do you think it was before Christmas?
Because people prepared for Christmas in the fall, but it was
mainly—from my recollection, it was done for Christmas. Even
with all my friends, it didn’t matter what religion they were, but
it just seemed like that was the thing. –Judy Symonds
76
RECIPES
I can remember mom brushing with baking soda and water for
whitening her teeth. –Deborah Noel
We used toothpaste but if you ran out then you would use
baking soda. That’s what we used in the household and that
would be a common thing I think for a lot of people. I don’t know
of any other thing that would’ve been used for brushing your
teeth. –Jeanette Russell
Now we didn’t have toothpaste, we didn’t have store bought
toothpaste, but mum would mix up baking soda and salt in a
bowl, and then she would put it in this small glass container.
And that was our toothpaste, that salt and baking soda mix-ture.
–Sally Peddle
We would wash our hair with soap. We had shampoo in a bottle; I
do remember looking at magazines and the shampoo I recall being
advertised in those days was called Breck shampoo. I can see
those ads now in my mind’s eye and they always had the models
with the beautiful glossy hair. But other than that I don’t recall
really a whole lot. Sunlight soap and I’m not sure when Ivory soap
came on the market. But I know that most of the time it was and
you would get, we had a pantry and there was a sink in the pantry
and we would go in there when we needed to wash our hair. We
would get up on a chair and put our heads down in the sink and
then mom or dad would wash our hair with the soap. For rinsing it
out we would usually just take a jug of water and pour it over your
head and rinse it out because I don’t think, I know in early days
we still didn’t have water in the house. Then we would also rinse
our hair with vinegar so that was something that was done like the
77
RECIPES
vinegar would get all the soap out and would make your hair really,
really squeaky clean. –Dianne Carr
Breck. The Daily News (St. John's, N.L.),
1958-05-05 Page 16.
78
CLEANING
For cleaners they would have none of the newer things that are
on the go now. But you would have sunlight soap for practically
everything. –Jennie Sheppard
They had Sunlight soap, in bars and people made their own soap
out of lye and fat or something. –Mike Whalen
My mom and them, you would see them with the iron ore, clothes.
It is not easy to get iron ore out of your clothes from the mines.
They would have the big washing tub with the scrubbing board,
and the blood would be coming out of their fingers. Scrubbing
with the sunlight soap on that washboard trying to get the iron
ore out of the clothes. –Edward Crane
Then they’d hang the laundry out on
the line, and the sheets—a lot of them,
they’d put it on the ground, on the
grass, if it was a sunny day, and that
was supposed to bleach them. Because
I can remember looking out in the
garden, and there’d be white sheets all
over, because that’s all they had, was
white sheets, they’d make them out of
flour sacks or whatever they had, right?
Then there was always a clothesline, of
course. From one end of the kitchen to
the other. –Patricia Rodgers
Sunlight Soap. Western Star
(Corner Brook, N.L.), 1944-
11-11 Page 26.
79
PRODUCTS
Cod Liver Oil - The Gerald S. Doyle blue bottle of cod liver oil
was a sure sign of spring. It too was given to school children as a
diet supplement. Much of it never reached home. –Wesley Gosse,
Stories and Stuff Spaniards Bay, page MORE 1
I can remember Friar’s Balsam, that was something. And if
you had a toothache or something, they put Friar’s Balsam
on it. –Judy Symonds
In them days they had although you don’t see it around too much
anymore - Mecca Ointment. In a can. It would cure anything.
Burns, scalds, anything. –Mike Whalen
We were given cod liver oil in school, and we were forced to
take it at home. A lot of people broke it on the way home, but you
know, we always had cod liver oil, or cod liver oil capsules, in
later years. –Judy Symonds
Mom said they used to give them a drink. They would get the
drink at recess like ovaltine. Mom said she used to be excited
to go to school just to get that drink. It tasted like malted milk
and they would do that because children were starving and the
poverty was so great. –Deborah Noel
Now old people mixed up a lot of stuff years ago with remedies.
For colds grandmother and them would give you nine drops of
liniment. Nine little drops of liniment, Minard’s Liniment, it was
white in a bottle. Minard’s Liniment and you would take nine
drops of that in about a quarter of a glass of water, stir it up and
give you that to drink. –Edward Crane
80
PRODUCTS
When I was in about grade, I’d say three or four, for two or three
years, the government provided Cocomalt in a great big tin.
Recess time, the teacher would put the kettle on, just before
recess, and boil it. We all had to bring a mug to school. Then
she’d come, and she’d put a spoonful or so in each cup, and we’d
drink the Cocomalt. It was provided by the government, I think,
for us children, to make sure we were getting some vitamins or
whatever was in it, I don’t know, but our parents couldn’t afford
to buy it, so we’d have a cup everyday. –Patricia Rodgers
Another—now, Friar’s Balsam, did you ever hear of that? It’s
kind of in a blue bottle. It was, you know, since I’ve been married,
you still can get it—but then, dad used to take—another thing
for a sore throat—he used to take a little bit of sugar, or maybe a
spoonful, and put a little bit of this Friar’s Balsam on it. Well, it
was the most horrible taste ever you could taste. He would get
us to take it down. You could feel
it going down, but it cured the
sore throat. So my sister hated it
that much that if she had a sore
throat, she wouldn’t tell mom or
dad, because it was so hard to
take. –Patricia Rodgers
We got cod liver oil when we went
to school, they gave us a bottle
every year. I hated it. Hated it.
When we’d be home our parents
would make us drink it, because
Doyle’s Pure Newfoundland Cod
Liver Oil. Western Star (Corner
Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 18.
81
PRODUCTS
we got it in school and it was good for us. Some of the boys would
have it drank before they got home, but I’d be the longest time.
Before each meal, mom would give me a spoonful. I hated it. Oh,
it used to make me so sick. That was all government supplied
then, I suppose, it had to be. So we’d get a bit of nutrition in us or
something, but anyway, it was all fun. You know, you just went
with the flow, and there was no arguing. –Patricia Rodgers
One thing for a sore throat, we would—my parents would boil
molasses on the stove, and when it’d get boiled—from what I can
remember, now—they put a few drops of kerosene oil in it. And
they let that boil up, and they’d take it off, and they’d give us a
spoonful of that.
I heard of someone putting Minard’s liniment in the molasses.
Yeah, that’s another one. Now kerosene oil, I don’t know why they
did that, because that was for the lamps, right, but a couple of little
drops, and they’d give it to us, so. It cleared it up. But the Minard’s
liniment is another one, I forgot about that. –Patricia Rodgers
Oh and know something else that mom used to do? If you had a
sore throat, they would heat the molasses. Now, if you were in
Norman’s Cove it would be blackstrap molasses. We couldn’t buy
blackstrap molasses where I lived, but if you went to downtown
St. John’s, you probably could—but there was molasses, and mom
would put in Minard’s Liniment. Which mom had until the day
she died, or the day she went in the home, and it was probably
outdated, probably ten, fifteen years, but she swore by it. She
put a little tiny bit of that in molasses. Then you would put the
82
PRODUCTS
spoon down in the molasses, and you would twirl it, and as the
molasses cooled, it stayed on the spoon, and you just sucked on
it like a lollipop. The medicine of the Minard’s Liniment was
soothing, the molasses was coating that, so that was something
that we did. I can remember that. –Judy Symonds
There were a fair number patent medicines available and used with
varying degrees of success. I guess in most family medicine chests -
or for us for sure there would have been iodine, mercurochrome.
Nobody wanted to have iodine! So the mercurochrome was red
and didn’t hurt. There was always a bottle of olive oil and it was
written on the label that is was not intended for internal use. That
would have been for earache or for wax of the ears too. So warm oil
would be dropped in. I know with my own children, my son had an
earache one of the things my husband would do was blow smoke
in his ear and it seemed to relieve it. That is something they did
commonly in Bay Roberts - where I lived when I was married. So
that was a common cure there for that. –Jeanette Russell
The home remedies that we had were mostly iodine and then
mercurochrome came on the market. There were self remedies
like that. Vinegar, baking soda was used in a lot of things like
poultices or bandages. So everybody just kind of did the best they
could with what they had. Certainly there were no drug stores
and nothing close to us. Even doctors – I mean you would never
take up a doctor’s time with just minor cuts, and bruises and
things like that. People would try and look after it themselves or
else they knew a neighbour who knew how to handle a certain
type of ailment and so that’s how it was done. I mean I don’t
remember anybody in our family – unless it was a broken bone, I
83
PRODUCTS
think my brother, I think he broke his arm playing hockey, or fell
off his bike or something like that and then he had to go to the
doctor and have the bone set. But if it was like cuts, and even if
you required stitches unless it was like a huge gash you know it
was just okay keep putting bandages on it and let it heal. Myself
included, there are people walking around with scars because
we didn’t have that medical expertise. –Dianne Carr
As a young child I did not want
to eat and it caused my mother
quite a bit of concern. So one
of the things that I had to have
growing up was a tonic and
the one that was given to me
and I believe at one point my
dad actually bought a case of
it was Brick’s Tasteless. It was
not tasteless. It was horrid.
Nobody else had to have it and
I drank quarts of it. Then of
course I would get these sore
throats so they were concerned
with keeping me eating. My
siblings would probably say I
liked the attention more than
the food. –Jeanette Russell
Brick’s Tasteless. Western Star (Corner
Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 21.
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
85
BUTTONING A HORSE
See, I didn’t grow up with
animals, even though my
grandfather did, but then
when I came out and star-ted
dealing with animals
myself, you got to deal with
the problem, you know. If
a horse is in trouble—if
they need to get a pill in
them, you’ve got to get a
pill in them, you’ve got to
figure out ways to make
things work. If you’ve got
a cow that’s calving and
you’ve got to push it back
in, you push it back in until
you can grab the legs and
finally hook their back legs.
You can kind of feel that
their back legs are different
from the front legs, and
then you’ve got to pull the
cow or the calf out.
I had a horse that got
kicked out in central
Newfoundland. Actually,
that’s where I bought it,
and I had to put it in a
Dave Dunn. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett. pasture out there. When I
86
BUTTONING A HORSE
went to get the horse, there was a hole in the side. I had to patch
it, and I couldn’t get a vet. So I sewed buttons on the outside of
the horse. Sewed buttons on the top and bottom of the hole, and
I laced it up with a shoelace. When I brought it back here—I had
called the vet, the vet met me up in the driveway. When I took the
horse out of the trailer and she looked at it, she said, “I couldn’t
have done any better.” I never took a picture of it. Never took a
picture. I left [the buttons] there until it cured and then [the vet]
said, “You can cut them out,” so I did, I cut them off. If I sewed
them on, I could take them off.
How big were the buttons?
The cut was about that long. Wallace’s horse had caulk shoes on
it. And that’s what kicked my horse. The front caulk just caught
in the flesh, and peeled back about an eight inch cut, in kind of a
horseshoe shape, so I had to sew three buttons on there, and the
rest on top. So it was seven buttons—one, two—yes, seven buttons.
I got sutures from a drugstore—I went to a doctor, actually, in
Lewisporte, and he wouldn’t come. He said, “People will call me
a horse doctor.” So he gave me some sutures, and I went to the
drugstore. I couldn’t get any painkiller, but I bought all the orajel
they had in the store. That’s what you put on kid’s teeth, right.
So I smeared that all over the horse so that she wouldn’t flinch
when I tried to sew her. But the repercussion of it was that it was
a hot day, and while I was in there trying to do it, I was rubbing
sweat off my head—and next thing I know, my forehead went
dead, and my nose went dead, and my mouth went dead, and my
fingers went numb—oh, it was so funny trying to do it. That was
the funny part. It just made it into such a lark. –Dave Dunn
87
BUTTONING A HORSE
Diagram drawn by Dave Dunn. 2017
88
BUTTONING A HORSE
Where did you get the idea?
Someone had said that they remembered a cow getting cut on a
barbed wire fence in Clarke’s Beach. This was in a conversation
with someone down there, when I had a cow down there in
pasture on Clarke’s Beach, and someone had mentioned that—
out of the blue—that an old guy had a cow down there one time,
and he got cut open on the barbed wire fence, and buddy tried
to sew it up, and he put buttons on it, and that’s how he got the
cut closed. And when we were up there in the field [in Central
Newfoundland] and I saw the horse—oh my god, my heart broke,
because I had borrowed a trailer from Harry Bishop down in Bay
Roberts, he had a race horse down in the track in the Goulds, so he
raced every weekend, whatever. So in between races, I borrowed
his trailer to go out and bring my horse in. And when I went out to
get it, here it was, slashed open. I tried to get a vet, and I couldn’t
get a vet. I didn’t want the thing to bleed to death, so I said, I’ll do
something, and right out of the blue someone mentioned, “There
was a farmer who had a cut cow.” I said, “Yes, that’s right. And
he used buttons.” And so I said, “Wallace.” His wife was there—
Myrtle, I think it was—and he says, “Myrtle, we’ll get the buttons!
Buttons!” She came out with this cookie tin. [laughs] There must
have been 500 buttons in it. And that’s where we picked the
buttons out of it. Once you got the first one on, you got the hang of
doing it. But by then my hands were all numb. I had to look at that
finger, and tell that finger to squeeze—no, pull—you know, and
you’re telling, your mind is telling your fingers what to do. That’s
the funny part, that’s the part that I found so fascinating about it.
Anyway, finally it worked out, and I came home and all that. Like
I said, animals make everything. –Dave Dunn
89
Printed Sources:
Gosse, Wesley. Stories and Stuff Spaniard’s Bay, NL. March 2007.
Gosse, Wesley. Stories and Stuff (II) Spaniard’s Bay NL. May 2008.
Clarice Adams - Tilton
Nathan Barrett - Bishop’s Cove
Ralph Barrett - Upper Island Cove
Dianne Carr - Spaniard’s Bay
Joyce Chipman - Spaniard’s Bay
Edward Crane - Upper Island Cove/Spaniard’s Bay
Pearl Drover - Bay Roberts East/Spaniard’s Bay
Dave Dunn - Makinsons
Sarah Griffiths Ennis - Placentia
Berdina Gosse - Spaniard’s Bay
Wesley Gosse - Spaniard’s Bay
Kim Granter - St. John’s
Eyvonne Harris - Upper Island Cove
Peter Lane - St. John’s/Spaniard’s Bay
Deborah Noel - Mount Pearl/Spaniard’s Bay
Dot O’Brien - Cape Broyle
Sally Peddle - Toronto/Spaniard’s Bay
Ruby Rees - Spaniard’s Bay
Patricia Rodgers - Carbonear
Edna Roberts - Labrador/Carbonear
Jeanette Russell - Spaniard’s Bay/Bay Roberts
Jennie Sheppard - Spaniard’s Bay
Judy Symonds - St. John’s/Norman’s Cove
Mike Whalen - Spaniard’s Bay
Sheila White - Spaniard’s Bay
THANK YOU
The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador
is a nonprofit organization which was established in 1984
to stimulate an understanding of and an appreciation for
the architectural heritage of the province. The Foundation,
an invaluable source of information for historic restoration,
supports and contributes to the preservation and restoration
of buildings of architectural or historical significance.
The Heritage Foundation also has an educational role and
undertakes or sponsors events, publications and other
projects designed to promote the value of our built heritage.
The Heritage Foundation is also involved in work designed
to safeguard and sustain the intangible cultural heritage
of Newfoundland and Labrador for present and future
generations everywhere, as a vital part of the identities
of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and as a valuable
collection of unique knowledge and customs. This is achieved
through policies that celebrate, record, disseminate, and
promote our living heritage.
The Oral History Roadshow is a project to
empower and encourage seniors to showcase
their memories through a series of public
oral history night celebrations, with funding
provided through New Horizons for Seniors. The
Collective Memories Project is an initiative of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Heritage
Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with
funding provided by the Department of Children,
Seniors and Social Development.
Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland & Labrador
1 Springdale Street
St. John’s, NL Canada A1C 5V5
Visit online and listen to audio recordings
of these stories, and more!
www.collectivememories.ca
1-888-739-1892
ISBN 978-1-988899-00-8

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

1
3
Researched and edited by Terra Barrett,
Andrea McGuire, and Dale Jarvis
Interviews by Thomas Lane
Oral History Roadshow Series #002
Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador
Intangible Cultural Heritage Office
St. John’s, NL, Canada
Layout / design by Jessie Meyer
2017
Folk Cures and Practical Magic
4
Introduction
Spaniard's Bay, like most small Newfoundland and Labrador
communities, contains a wealth of 'hand- me-down' stories,
recollections and anecdotes including its share of superstition,
secrets and sorcery that has stood the test of time. As an added
component to our Heritage mandate, it was decided to pursue an
Oral History/Collective Memory project that would bring seniors
and all interested residents together to share in a common goal.
Since generations of ancestors had very limited medical know-ledge
and little or no access to doctors or hospitals, people relied on
family and community elders for remedies and home- made cures
to deal with common ailments such as sore throats, stomach upset
and headaches. Charms and spells were considered acceptable
( and welcome) methods to "put away" warts, predict the number
of children a woman might have ( and their sex), or rid your eye of
a nasty stye. This book is a result of conversations and interviews
with various residents that focus mainly on 'old time' medicinal
applications, beliefs and cures.
While it is essential to research, record and preserve our intan-gible
culture before memories fade and sources are lost, it is in
the telling and re-telling, recollection and reminiscence, easy
conversation and laughter that we realize, recognize and cherish
the irreplaceable gift of our ancestors and how important it is
that we take steps to keep it safe for future generations. It is my
fervent hope that this collection of stories is the first volume of
many that will be our Spaniard's Bay Oral History Archives.
5
Sincere appreciation and thanks to Dale Jarvis for your in-spiration,
advice and assistance and to the Town of Spaniard's
Bay and to Heritage Society members for continued support in
this venture and all things Heritage. Thanks to the Society’s
own summer student Thomas Lane, as well as Terra Barrett,
Aerial photo of the Oral History Roadshow event in the Wesley Gosse Memorial Museum
in Spaniard’s Bay. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
Introduction
6
L to R: Thomas Lane, Kelsey Parsons, Dianne Carr, Abigail Smith, and Dale Jarvis in front
of the Wesley Gosse Heritage Museum. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
and Andrea McGuire with the Heritage Foundation who re-searched
and recorded these stories.
Most of all, this book would not happen without the generous
participation of those whose words give voice to our past.
Thank you!
Dianne Carr
Spaniard's Bay Heritage Society
Introduction
Magic
8
But they said they would pass [their power] on, some people
would, and others wouldn’t tell what they did. But it’s almost like
a miracle, you know. –Patricia Rodgers
I don’t remember a whole lot of things. There were definitely
people who were known to be able to do certain things. Now my
grandmother who was from Winterton, Trinity Bay she lived to
be 88 and she had many, many stories to tell. As we were growing
up she told us lots of different things about her childhood and
about different superstitions that people had in the community.
Mostly to do, because it was a fishing community, mostly to do
with people being lost at sea, and people having apparitions, the
old hag – the nightmares, those kind of things. But she loved to
read tea leaves. She did do that quite a bit and whenever we had
tea leaves we would say, “Nanny, nanny, can you read our tea?”
Nails. Courtesy of Pixabay.
HEALING POWERS
9
We would tip the cup and she would look at our leaves and then
she would pronounce. Oh well, you’re going to, for example, you’ll
get married, you’ll have a long life, you’re going to have X number
of children. These kinds of things. None of which I remember.
But I remember that it was fun to do. –Dianne Carr
I would say I was probably ten or eleven years old, and visiting
my mom’s family in Norman’s Cove. They lived in what they
called, “out the lane” that was going out towards the wharf. All
my mom’s family lived there, grew up there. That was my Aunt
Lizzie and Uncle Ern. That was their house that we used to stay
at, mom and I. They had a daughter my age, Barb, and a son, Clee,
who lives in St. John’s, Cleophus Newhook, and two daughters:
one who lives in Winterton, Florrie, who’s an artist; and their
other daughter Bessie, who lives in Placentia. We always hung
out together. We would help with turning and making the hay,
which was, you know, drudgery and a chore for them, but it was
fun for me. We’d like to go out into the barn, and there was a
loft in the barn. When they made the hay, and they put it in the
barn, then us as kids—we probably weren’t supposed to do it—we
would go and get up on the loft and jump down in the piles of hay,
which would be almost up to the roof of the barn. This evening, I
remember it being after supper or something, we were out there,
and some more of my cousins who live out there in the lane, and
we’d jump off—and I jumped, and probably jumped too high, and
hit my head, put my hand up, as you would, and when I put my
hand up and took it down it was red, it was bleeding. So of course
we all ran screaming and crying into the house. First thing
they did was call for Uncle Clee. He was called Old Uncle Clee,
because there were two or three of them in the family. He was,
HEALING POWERS
10
as I said, the principal of the school, the minister, he performed
all of the things that you had to do in the community, and that
was the first thing, to go and get him. He came up, and he looked
at it, and I can still remember it now. He said, “Go and get the
nail.” So I think it must have been [cousin] Clee, had to go and get
the nail out of the loft, and then he said, “Put it in the kerosene
oil can.” I don’t think anyone, including me, questioned why, but
I wonder today, what was the purpose of the nail, putting it in
the kerosene oil? Now, I don’t think any more of my cousins will
remember that other than me, but I guess it must have had a big
impact on me. Then he cut the hair around the cut, you know,
cleaned it with something—I don’t know what it was—and I think
he put something like myrrh or something on it. Myrrh was the
sticky stuff off the trees. That would kind of seal it up. It was like
stitching. That’s all. [It] healed, I never had any infection, I never
had anything after that—but I could still feel this little spot on
my head for years. The hair grew back. But it was funny—and I
never ever asked why it was a nail in the lamp. Because kerosene
oil came in a can, and we had to put it down there. Unless it was
so nobody else would hurt themselves on it, it might have been
something as simple as that, but it was very profound for me at
the time. –Judy Symonds
There were a few people who were known for different magical
things like that. There was an older lady, and I did not know
her—I know her descendents, of course—but she was well known
throughout the community. There was one doctor for the whole
of Harbour Grace, Upper Island Cove, Bryant’s Cove, Bishop’s
Cove, all those communities, only the one doctor, and he lived
in Harbour Grace. That was the only medical access you would
HEALING POWERS
11
HEALING POWERS
have. But there was this lady, and she was magical, apparently,
with a lot of things. So if anybody had any problems, they would
go and see her. –Ralph Barrett
One of the things that I did have experience with was the old
hag. My husband was bothered with that so when he would
experience that he said he could feel someone sitting on his chest.
He was having dreams but he would moan a lot and it became
quite evident that he was experiencing that sort of nightmare
and so I would have to make sure I shook him awake and got him
completely awake. Not to just leave him there. He said it was a
terrible feeling to feel that presence with him. It happened quite
a lot early in our marriage. It took quite a lot to rouse him. My son
when he was quite young, when he was just walking, two, three
Dianne Carr. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
12
HEALING POWERS
years old he seemed to be sleep walking quite a bit but his eyes
were open. He would come out to me looking for mommy and I
couldn’t convince him I was mommy. My mother-in-law said
you have to say his full name so I would say to him, rather loudly,
“Peter Brian Russell, wake up Peter Brian Russell!” That would
work and then he would wake up, and go back to bed and go to
sleep. But he would be walking to me—eyes wide open but not
recognizing me at all and just looking for mommy. I’m not sure if
that was something of the same sort of nature—it wasn’t the idea
of having someone on your chest but of being not fully aware and
being bothered by that. –Jeanette Russell
There were some magical things—home remedy stuff—that they
would use for cures. I remember one instance that just came into
my mind then, one particular family—and they were fishermen.
Not like the fishermen now, because this was back 70 years ago or
more. By the water’s edge, there was a fishing stage that they would
have to take care of their fish and salt it, salt away the herring in
barrels and stuff. Many times during the winter somebody might
have a sore throat, usually somebody in the family. What they
would do was go over to the fishing stage to get a salt herring, and
shake the salt off of it, They’d get a piece of clean cloth and wrap up
the salt herring, and tie that around their neck for a sore throat. It
must have been nice and smelly. [laughs] –Ralph Barrett
We had a woods behind our house. Our area wasn’t very developed
down off Park Avenue and there was a little circle in that area and
I was young but I used to go down there and I was told it was a
fairy circle so when I was about seven or eight our cat had been
hit, Tinkerbell, had been hit by a bb gun. I can remember Mom and
13
HEALING POWERS
Dad standing over the cat and they were talking about having to go
get it put down which was very unusual then to even go to a vet. I
believed that if my cat went to the fairy circle, I believed the fairies
would take my cat and bring him into the circle and the cat would
be okay. So I remember coming home that day and Tinkerbell
wasn’t there and my mom telling me that she saw Tinkerbell go
down in the woods and she saw the fairies come out and take
Tinkerbell with them. So I was okay. I thought Tinkerbell had
gone to a better situation. So yeah there was a fairy circle there but
when I was about eleven or twelve they bulldozed it down and put
up Jubilee Square or Circle. –Deborah Noel
My grandmother, who was Miriam Bursey Churley, she was
born a Bursey in Lance Cove, which I think was in Brownsdale.
She married my grandfather Elias Churley from Old Perlican.
She had a charm, which was passed on to her from some older
male relative. I think it was words, but she had to put her hands
on wherever the problem was. She used it to get rid of warts, and
soothe toothaches. I don’t know if it did anything else, because as
I said, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, never having had need
of it. Maybe it worked for earaches too, I don’t know. But when she
died, I gather she passed the charm on to my brother, who lives in
Winnipeg. I forgot to ask him whether she actually did—because
we’ve never talked—he’s never mentioned it. But she said that she
would pass it on to him, because it had to go male-female-male,
that kind of thing. –Edna Roberts
14
MAY SNOW
There was always the talk
that May snow was good
for the eyes and back then
we didn’t seem to have as
much May snow it seemed
like. Or freckles! Good for
washing freckles. I did
try it even though I didn’t
have sore eyes at the time
but I thought, “Well we’ve
got May snow so I’ve got
to try this.” Having not
had sore eyes I did not
have sore eyes after I
applied it! But it was a
known thing. My grandmother used to always have those sorts
of things to tell us about. I didn’t have many freckles so I don’t
know if that would’ve worked for freckles but it is worth trying I
suppose. –Jeanette Russell
The May snow was someone from O’Regan’s in the Codroy
Valley. We used to go over there fishing, and [she] had a fishing
camp where we used to stay. She would actually go out in May
and get snow. I don’t know if she kept it as water in her fridge, or
snow in the freezer, but I remember my husband had something
wrong with his eyes one time, and she said, “Come up and I’ll rub
them with May snow.” She did, but I didn’t see that either. I don’t
know if it worked. –Edna Roberts
Edna Roberts. 2017. Photo by Andrea McGuire.
15
REMOVING FRECKLES
Oh how I hated my freckles when I was about seven or eight! Go
out in the morning when the dew was on the grass go and wash
your face in that and it’ll take your freckles away. Didn’t work but
it gave you something to occupy your time while you were out on
holidays for a week. It didn’t make any difference. –Eyvonne Harris
Freckles. Courtesy of Pixabay.
16
SEVENTH SON
That has a mysterious character. Seventh son of a seventh son,
they sort of had powers. –Ralph Barrett
They used to say that [if you placed a worm on] a seventh son of a
seventh son the worm would die. Whether there was any truth to
it or not I don’t know. –Nathan Barrett
We just heard that said. I didn’t know anybody who was the
seventh son of a seventh son but that person was supposed to
have healing abilities. So it was just a matter of it being known.
Not that I knew anybody. –Jeanette Russell
One of mom’s cousins—a little boy—was a seventh son of a
seventh son. I can remember seeing people being brought to
him, and his mother laying his little hand, you know, and saying
whatever he had to say. As a child, at ten or eleven years old, I
knew that there was something special about this little boy. I
can’t remember his name or anything. I was told he was special,
because he was a seventh son of a seventh son. That was in
Norman’s Cove. So he was a little boy at the time and people
were being brought to them. I mean, it’s just so interesting that
this little boy would be told he had this power. –Judy Symonds
17
TOOTHACHE CURES
Cloves for a toothache. Oil of clove and they would put it around
the tooth. I think people still do it now. –Deborah Noel
I remember for a toothache people would blow cigarette smoke
into your mouth. Sore ear was probably just warm water in a
compress and maybe olive oil, mom might’ve put oil. I doubt it
was olive oil; I don’t think anyone had even heard of olive oil
then. –Deborah Noel
What would we do for a toothache? We’d put a hot cloth on our
face, I know that. But I can’t remember rubbing anything inside
on my gums or anything, it was probably something they did. But
I can’t remember anything about that. You’d probably get a hot
water bottle or something like that. –Patricia Rodgers
My nan. She had a great cure for anything. If you had a toothache
go eat a biscuit. It worked. It had to be those round molasses,
Purity molasses cookies. No that’s what nan used to tell me.
I was only about seven or eight and they were wicked, wicked
toothaches and that’s what she would say and I would go in
and she would have her package in her little cupboard and I
would take one and munch away because they are right soft. No
toothache! –Eyvonne Harris
So, pains in your face mom would heat a plate in the oven and
you could put that to your face. Or you would have a hot water
bottle. But I can remember using a warm plate too. Somehow I
don’t know why that would be more effective but maybe it was
easier to hold to your faces. –Jeanette Russell
18
TOOTHACHE CURES
Another medicine or cure was—I used to have a lot of toothaches
because I loved eating candy, especially at night, and not brushing
my teeth afterwards, which was a bad thing in my family, because
[my mother] was a dental nurse, you see. Anyway, a clove—the
whole clove was put on the tooth that was aching, and then you
would keep it there in your mouth as best as possible. That would
help to relieve the ache until you went to the dentist. It must have
worked well, because it took the pain away—because she wasn’t
about to give us any aspirin, I don’t even know if aspirin was
invented or at least if it was, we never had it. –Sally Peddle
Cloves. Courtesy of Pixabay.
19
TOOTHACHE CHARMS
If you had a toothache or anything you would go to some old
person and they would charm it. –Nathan Barrett
Yes I knew about [charmers] but my gosh I don’t know their names
now but I know they used to go to some people and sure enough
they would take away the warts and heal toothaches. Some that
were seventh sons they would be the ones. –Clarice Adams
There was also a prayer for a toothache. Now, I don’t know the
prayer—I can’t remember. There was a lady here who used to
say a prayer for your toothache. I can’t remember who she was. I
never went to her, by the way, but I used to hear people saying, “If
you go to such a lady,” and I can’t remember her name, “she’ll say
a prayer, and your toothache will get better.” –Dot O’Brien
There was an old fellow who lived down the road from us, called
Uncle Billy Hutchings. He used to charm your tooth if you got a
toothache. We would go down when we were young fellows and
he would charge you 25 cents, and 25 cents was a lot of money
then when I was growing up. We could get a bar, bag of chips, and
a bottle of drink out of a quarter. So we would go down and Uncle
Billy would have the rum, he would have a bottle of rum, and he
would take this rum and rub it over your tooth. I don’t know what
he would say but he would say something when rubbing it over
your tooth and in two days it would go away. Now after a while
the toothache would come back again because there’s not much
sense, the rum only deadened the tooth. He wanted to get our
quarter! –Edward Crane
20
TOOTHACHE CHARMS
I only know one old fellow. He lived down to the gullies. Uncle
George Mercer. He could cure your tooth. If you had a toothache
you would go down to George. I went down one time when I had a
toothache, now I had an aunt married to his son, and I went down
and she said, he was in his garden it was in the fall of the year, and
she said, “Now, when you go over don’t say Mr. and don’t thank
him,” she said. “Alright I won’t.” I said, “George, cure my tooth.” He
kept on digging potatoes. He never said anything. She said, “Go to
the house.” So I go home and sit down and mom was there a nice
while and my son I say, I had some toothache. He came over and
Dot O’Brien. 2017. Photo by Andrea McGuire.
21
TOOTHACHE CHARMS
he said, “Kneel down.” So I kneeled down and blessed myself. He
put his hand in whatever he had in there and whatever he said, I
don’t know what he said. Then he said, “Get up,” and he said to his
daughter in law, “Mary, give him a cup of tea.” I had a cup of tea and
the toothache was gone then –Mike Whalen
There was another incident where there was this gentleman,
and he had a magical thing for toothache. Because dentists
were more scarce than doctors, and I mean, there was only one
doctor for the whole area. But there was no dentist. But if you
had a toothache, you’d have to go and see this particular man.
He was just a labourer like everybody else. But prior to going,
your mother would have to make a little bag, probably about
two inches square, with a string—and the string had to be long
enough to go around your neck. When you went to see this man,
this gentleman, and you’d tell him that you had toothache, you
had to tell him where—so, “Open your mouth, and put your
finger on that tooth,” and he’d put his finger on that tooth, and
he’d get a little scrap of paper and a pencil, and he’d scribble
some kind of little symbols on that piece of paper, and fold it and
put it in that little bag that you had on your neck. “It’s against
the law, you’re not supposed to look at that.” Oh, that was very
secret, you’re not allowed to look at that. If you did, I mean, that
was—everything was wiped clear, you know, that wouldn’t do
any good. The power in that piece of paper would be destroyed,
so you weren’t allowed to look at it. You put that in this little bag
on your neck, and you had to wear that until the toothache was
gone. When the toothache was gone—it might take a week, or
two weeks—then you could take it off. –Ralph Barrett
22
WART CURES
There was a lady here—one thing that they did was tie knots—
every wart you had, they’d tie a knot on a string, and bury the
string. When the string rotted, the warts would go. –Sarah
Griffiths Ennis
One of the other remedies for getting rid of warts was to get an
old maid, if she had a ring on her finger, to get her to rub that on
the wart and that was supposed to make the wart go away as
well. –Peter Lane
There were lots of cures. One of the cures was that you rub fat
pork on the wart and give it to a dog to lick off and that was
supposed to cure the warts. We used to count how many warts
we had and they would get us to go out in the garden get a stick
with that many branches or twigs on it and you would bury that
in the ground and that would cure the warts. –Ruby Rees
Well when I was growing up everybody got warts. How they got
them I don’t know. Probably it was a hygiene issue but pretty well
all kids had warts. We were told you got them from handling
frogs or worms or something like that so I guess it was bacteria
or stuff on those type of animals and insects. But everybody had
warts. There were all kinds of folk ways you supposedly could get
rid of them but the one that I am aware of most is that you cut a
potato in half. You would rub the wart and take that part out in a
garden and bury it behind a tree and three or four days later your
wart was supposed to disappear. Not really sure if it worked that
well or not. –Peter Lane
23
WART CURES
Branch with snail. Courtesy of Pixabay.
24
WART CHARMS
Well Mrs. Roberts, the woman next door, she used to take away
warts. She wouldn’t tell anyone the secret because if she told
everyone the secret it wouldn’t work. –Ruby Rees
I took my son over and it was this elderly lady I suppose she was
seventy some, and she would catch hold of the child’s hand and
convince him that the warts would go away, that it was nothing
serious that it was probably out playing, and all that stuff. His
warts didn’t go away. She lives over in Coley’s Point. Boland.
Marian Boland. That’s what she used to do. She used to have a lot
of customers and maybe it worked because they say that warts
are caused by a nervous condition on some people but my son his
warts were [under his fingertips] so I was thinking that he was
probably out digging and it got there, right?
[My daughter] Mandy had cradle cap so the doctor gave me this
bottle of stuff and it worked like a charm. So I said well maybe if
it worked for that because her head was really bad so I took it and
put it on [my son’s] warts for five or six days. Cradle cap is like
eczema. Same thing as eczema. But the stuff that I used on her
hair I used on his warts and they went away. –Eyvonne Harris
My aunt used to cure warts. You had to go get a snail, get a nail,
nail the snail onto the tree, and when the snail was rotted, your
wart was gone. But she also had a prayer—a wart prayer that she
said over your warts. She never said it out loud. After she said the
prayer over your warts, she’d tell you to go find a snail—I don’t
know how you’d find one in the winter. And nail it to the tree. She
said, “When the snail is rotted, your warts will be gone.” I tried it
once, and my wart went. –Dot O’Brien
25
WART CHARMS
Kim Granter. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
26
WART CHARMS
That’s my only cure, aside from all the regular stuff that people
talk about, like rubbing rings on stuff. However, Loretta did tell
me something that might be interesting. I think she got it from a
lady from Bell Island, whose father had died while she was in the
womb. She was conceived, but not born yet. This woman told—I
think when Loretta saw her, she had a wart. She said, “If you
rub a part of my clothing without my knowing it—if you rub that
wart on part of my clothing without my knowing it, the wart will
disappear.” That was because she was a daughter who had been
born, but had never seen her father. Her father had died while she
was in the womb. I didn’t think to ask if it worked for males, too,
but I assume it would. Now that one I hadn’t heard before. She
could only heal unknowingly. If she knew that you had done it,
then it didn’t work. Sounds pretty good, hey? If it doesn’t work,
she can always say, “Well, I knew you did that.” –Edna Roberts
My grandmother, Patience Crane, that’s my father’s mom she
would put the warts away. I had a big wart on my hand one time.
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll take that wart away. ” She told me to go
out and get a snail, the big snail you get when it rains. It’s under
the rocks. So I went out and got the snail and I came in and she
said “Snail, take the wart, wart, go away. When this snail dies
the wart will go away.” When she read what she had to say she
rubbed the snail over the wart she told me to take that snail and
put it in a bottle and put the cover on it. [With the snail] in a jar
go up in the garden and bury it but don’t tell anybody where you
buried it or it won’t work. Don’t tell anybody where you buried
the snail. So that’s what I did. I took the snail went up in the
garden and buried him. [After] a few days you could see the wart
disappearing. The snail died, see? With the stopper on the snail
27
WART CHARMS
had to perish. The wart went away and I never told anybody up
until this day and I’m seventy two years old and I was only about
maybe thirteen years old then.
Do you remember what she said when she rubbed the snail over
the wart?
Wart, wart go away. Snail, snail take it away. That’s what she
said a few times and rubbed the snail over the wart. Then I
had to take that and bury it and when the snail died the wart
disappeared and that’s what happened to it and I never had a
wart after. –Edward Crane
When I was little I had warts on my hands. Dozens of them
and I think Mom tried compound W and different things that
the doctor gave her and they never went away. My friend Kathy
Robson up the street, her aunt, I think, was married into this
family. I didn’t realize it at the time but he was the man who put
away my warts. He knew my dad from work, he must have said
something about putting away warts and when Dad said that I
had a lot of warts on my hand he said, “Go home and count them
and make sure you count them all because if you don’t count
them all they won’t all go away. I will put them away for her.” So
he came home and I counted the warts and dad went back to work
and told this man and then they didn’t go away and a few months
later he asked dad and he said, no I still had all the warts. So he
came to the house and he stood in the back porch and I went to
the back door and I showed him my hands and he never touched
my hand and I had to count all the warts and I actually missed
one on my right hand and it stayed there for years but within a
28
WART CHARMS
few weeks all the others were gone. I have no explanation, they
just disappeared except the one that I missed. It was probably
there for five or ten years after that. It just eventually went away
on its own. I showed him the front of my hands and the back of
my hands and he said, “Okay. You can forget about them now and
they will go away.” Then they did. –Kim Granter
I don’t remember my friends having warts the same but my hands
were covered. I had them all over my hands and I remember on
this knuckle on my right hand I had a very large, seedy one and
at the time I was taking piano lessons as all my family members
were and sitting at the piano in the evening practicing they were
very visible. Of course going to my piano teacher I was very self
conscious about that. Initially, I know my dad had gone to the drug
store and gotten something to put on them and nothing seemed
to work. We tried some other cures and I’m not sure if these are
from the doctor but one of them involved full strength vinegar
and applying that. There was something that seemed like a stick,
like a matchstick or something, there may have been some sulfur
or something involved. None of that seemed to work and I was
getting pretty upset by this. I don’t remember who but somebody,
probably an older member of the community, somebody told me,
“Why don’t you see Aunt Ermine and ask her to put them away.”
She just lived down the hill and a couple of doors over and so I
thought, “Well what is the etiquette for having your warts put
away what do you have to do?” “Well you have to count them and
then you have to go and ask her, “Will you put my warts away?”.
But you’re not to say thank you.” So it took me a while. I don’t
remember the exact number but I think it was about 142 by the
time I counted every little one that was starting to grow and the
29
WART CHARMS
big ones and pondered and perplexed over whether I should call
this big one one or was it more than one or whatever. So anyway
I was very timid and I went in her house and said, “Aunt Ermine
will you put my warts away?” and she didn’t ask me how many,
she just turned around and looked at me and said, “Yes.” I said,
“Thank you.” and went through the door and then when I got
outside I realized I said thank you and they are not going to go
away. But it was miraculous. They were visibly disappearing
from my hands. I remember it being perhaps a week but it might
have been just slightly longer than that but it was certainly no
longer than that and everything had disappeared. My skin was
perfectly clear and that was it. I haven’t been bothered with them
since. It was pretty neat and there were other people who had
other ways of doing it. My grandmother, who visited often and
who lived with us later on in her life, I remember her saying one
time that another way to do it was to rub salt pork over the warts
and give it to a dog to eat. A friend of mine said that the cure that
she knew of was rubbing half a potato and then burying that and
then as it rotted then the warts would go away. I do remember my
grandmother mentioning that some people used to mark chalk
marks on the back of the stove—so that would have been a wood
stove—as the chalk burned away they would go away. So it was
a matter of a small period of time and if you had a charmer then
that would happen. My grandmother could charm warts but
she said, “No, I can’t do that for you.” I guess being related had
something to do with it but she never did pass on the secret of
how to do it. –Jeanette Russell
30
MEDICINE
31
MIDWIVES
Oh yes! I remember the midwife coming with my younger sis-ter
and that was rather traumatic for me. We were told that
Mrs. Hussey, who was the midwife that would have come and
was well known in the community, I think she was from Tilton,
brought babies in her black bag. That’s how babies arrived in all
our communities. We didn’t have a stork we had Mrs. Hussey.
She came to my mom when my younger sister was born. But that
was it. Not under a cabbage leaf, not being brought by the stork,
but Mrs. Hussey brought babies in her black bag. So she brought
me a baby sister. –Jeanette Russell
I never went to the hospital. I had a midwife, she came from
Tilton. Emily Sheppard’s mother, that’s who born my two
children. –Joyce Chipman
The midwives were usually aunts and passed down through like
that. My mom had a midwife when she had my brother years ago,
when she was in Coley’s Point. Mom was only sixteen and she
had a midwife. That was just somebody in the family. It could’ve
been an aunt or a distant cousin would come there the day or two
days before. –Eyvonne Harris
My brother Raymond had a woman here in Spaniard’s Bay
because he was born right there in that house. That was Aunt
Mary Sheppard. Down in Island Cove, I was born down there and
my sister was born down there, we had a woman who lived next
door to my grandparents and she was a Crane. –Jennie Sheppard
I know one was Mrs. Ella Hussey and another one was Aunt
Sis Gosse.
32
MIDWIVES
Did your family ever employ one of these?
Oh yes. My mother, all of her children were born home by midwife.
Everybody did, you know. Unless there was trouble. They would
all come to the house. –Clarice Adams
Midwives - when I was growing up there was two. Aunt Maggie
Lundrigan and Aunt Sue Sharpe. They were the two midwives
when I was growing up. Aunt Sue Sharpe that’s who was the
midwife when I was born. –Edward Crane
I remember when my brother was born—he was the last baby that
Mom had. He was only probably three pounds. Now you imagine
in them days, having a three pound baby. In the house and not out
in the Janeway, with a machine to put him in. I remember, the first
person that went—he walked down to the priest’s house, and asked
the priest to come up. You know, and he came up, and he baptized
him on the table in case he would die. Then this woman, she was a
war bride. Her name was Morag O’Brien. I think she received the
Order of Canada there, in her later years. She came up and she got
a box, and she lined the box with wad—cotton, all around—and she
put the baby in it, and she put him behind the stove. Like we had an
old-fashioned stove, and there was space behind and that’s where
she put him. And he survived. –Dot O’Brien
Four children in our family had midwifes and my youngest sister
was born in Carbonear hospital which had just newly opened
I think that year previous. That was the common thing in those
days. I was born in ’49 so certainly prior to that and even into the
33
MIDWIVES
‘50s, early ‘50s. I would say by the mid ‘50s it would be rare unless
you were in an isolated area. There was a Mrs. Hussey from Tilton,
and I know my paternal grandmother. She died just before or just
after I was born so I don’t think she had anything to do with my
birth but she was definitely there when my brother was born and
that was in 1947. My dad’s sister who lived in Tilton, I can’t be sure
if she was a midwife, but I know she was called on by a lot of people
and her name was Annie Barrett. She married a Barrett, she was
a Vokey prior to that. I think there was a Mrs. Anthony also but
I can’t be sure. I don’t really remember a whole lot. I do, I mean I
was old enough to remember my three younger sisters being born,
and I remember being in the house. The third one, the last one of
course was born in the hospital, but the other two we would be
told to wait downstairs and mom is having the baby. I don’t recall
it being a big, dramatic type of moment. –Dianne Carr
Were there ever any midwives around?
Yes. Well, we were all born with midwives, I mean mom never
went to the hospital to have either one of us. But I can remember
as a little girl, seeing this lady—I knew her, she lived down the
street—Mrs. Janes. Once in awhile I’d see her walk up the road,
and after awhile she’d come down. Then the next day I’d find out
wherever she was going, they had a baby. You know? Of course,
I didn’t ask any questions. This went on for a few years. I was
connecting her with the baby, not realizing she was a midwife.
Then as I got older I caught on. Now my sister’s four years
younger than me, but at that time when the baby was about to be
born, my grandmother or my aunt or someone would come and
34
MIDWIVES
Medical bag.
35
MIDWIVES
Courtesy of Pixabay.
36
MIDWIVES
take me to their place until the baby was born. I didn’t stay in
the house at all. Then I had a brother after that, he was eleven
years in difference, and the same thing happened. They didn’t
keep me in the house, they just went. At that time, you didn’t talk
too much about babies or how they were born or where they came
from, you know, you noticed if somebody got big, but our parents
didn’t really sit down and explain things to us. A lot of it we had
to figure out on our own, you know. I put having the baby with
Mrs. Janes, you know what I mean? Then when she’d come, and
somebody’d say, “Come on with me now, for a little while,” and I’d
go on, and when I’d come back there’d be a baby in the house.
Did you have some theories about Mrs. Janes?
Oh then—as far as I was concerned in the beginning, when we
were really small, we used to think Mrs. Janes brought the baby
there. You must remember, our parents didn’t wear tight clothes,
you know. They had these smock-type things, you would hardly
notice them.
So you didn’t know that you were going to have a new sibling?
No. But when my brother was born I was catching on, I was a bit
older, and I understood then, you know what I mean? Now, we
weren’t taught in school or anything like that. Somebody would tell
me that Mom was going to have a baby, and I understood it then—
that when they took me, I knew when I came home there was going
to be a baby there. I guess they didn’t want you [around] if there was
any confusion or anything in the house. –Patricia Rodgers
37
MIDWIVES
A midwife didn’t just come for the birth, she would’ve helped
after the birth as well. I wasn’t aware of before the birth but they
didn’t just attend the birth, they would’ve helped out at the house
as well. –Jeanette Russell
They would come to the house a week prior to due time and they
would help with the housework and the cleaning and all this
stuff. Then when the baby was going to be ready to come that’s
what they would do. They would make sure that the afterbirth
and everything was cleaned up. Then they would stay another
week or so to make sure. Back then when they fed the child all
they had, well if it wasn’t breast feeding, they had these clothes
they used to have made up and sewed like a funnel with a very
thin little tight top on it and this is where would put it would be a
mixture of bread if they had sugar they would use sugar, be just
a mixture of bread and milk and that’s what they would let the
child suck on. –Eyvonne Harris
My grandmother was a midwife for years and that’s my mother’s
mother. They said at one time she was a midwife for years and
years. I imagine it was probably a midwife or my grandmother
came out when we were born but I don’t know. But my grandmother
in Tilton was a midwife for years and years.
Did she get paid for her work?
Not that I’m aware of. –Berdina Gosse
They’d take the baby, and they’d put this belly band on, right
around the baby, right tight. Then they’d take a blanket and put it
38
underneath the baby. They’d pull the foot part up, and they’d pull
each side over as tight as they could, and put a couple of pins in it
so the baby couldn’t move its feet or anything. They’d leave it like
that for a week or two before they’d take it out, and then they’d
take the belly band off and that. I don’t know why they did that, I
don’t know. They must have had some reason.
Do you remember if the midwife received any payment or any
bartering or anything?
I really don’t know, but if she did, it was very little, because nobody
had much to give her. Now, I would say it would be something
from their cellar, or vegetables, or if they had some sheep or some
goats to kill, or something like that, they’d give it to her. In later
years, she probably did. She probably did get a bit of money, you
know what I mean, but it wouldn’t be very much, I tell you. But
yup, she delivered a lot of babies. A lot. And I never heard of any of
them passing away at the time, you know? Probably they wouldn’t
tell us or something like that, you know. –Patricia Rodgers
MIDWIVES
39
DOCTORS
If people wanted to go to a doctor anywhere most of the time they
would have to walk to Harbour Grace or Bay Roberts. Mainly
Harbour Grace to Doctor Cron. –Clarice Adams
I think we had one doctor and that was Doctor Axon. He’s dead for
years gone by but that’s who we had to go to. One doctor. We had one
doctor. It’s not like it is now. I can remember we used to have to pay
to go see the doctor. It wasn’t too many that went to the doctor then
because you used to have to go and pay the doctor. –Pearl Drover
Doctor Cron in Harbour Grace he came on horse and sleigh in the
winter. Travelled that way in the early days. Later he got a car but
he belonged to Harbour Grace. He was a character he was, a real
character. He was a good doctor. He did a lot of work in his day
I tell you. If you wanted a doctor and we didn’t have telephones
then you would put out a white flag on the fence and when he was
going along if he saw the white flag anywhere he would stop and
go it and see who was sick. –Ruby Rees
Dad said that when he had his tonsils out the doctor would come to
the house. They would [go to] each little community. The children
were compelled to get [their] tonsils out. I don’t know what they
used to use as a deadener but dad said they used to put it on a
feather and put it down their throat. Then they would hold them
down on the table and reach in and snip their tonsils out. Everyone
who got the deadener was on the same feather. –Eyvonne Harris
I can remember in the 60s the big thing was to get your tonsils
out and I can remember six of us being in the Janeway and it was
such a thing to get your tonsils out because then you got to have
40
DOCTORS
Coke and ice cream. That’s what
I remember, them bringing in the
cases of Coke the night before
and the excitement, “We’re going
to get our tonsils out tomorrow
and we’re going to get Coke! We’re
going to go under anesthetic and
we might probably die but we’re
going to get Coke.” That’s all we
could think about. There were
cases of Coke because they would
give you Coke after to make your
throat feel better hence creating
an entire generation of type two
diabetes. –Deborah Noel
There was a case where this
family—the lady of the house was
having problems with varicose
veins, and they used to bleed. She was always bothered with that.
One particular time, the doctor who lived in Harbour Grace was
up to the community, because somebody had called him. So when
the Mercer family heard that, the husband went over to that house
and asked if the doctor would come over and see his wife. And he
did. When he checked her over, he said to her husband, “What you
should do is get some spider webs.” You’d go into the old barns, and
everybody had a barn, and up in the beams there’s lots of spider
webs, like wool. “Just get some of those webs, and put it on her
legs and then put a bandage around, and that’ll help to prevent
the bleeding.” That got around, you know, because when he used
Ralph Barrett. 2017. Photo by
Andrea McGuire.
41
DOCTORS
up, over a period of time, what was in his own barn, then he went
in somebody else’s barn. Hence he got known as John Spider.
–Ralph Barrett
There were two doctors and they lived side by side. There was
Dr. Drover and Dr. Avery. Dr. Avery seemed to be the kinder one
so if we got the opportunity to visit him that seemed to be a
better thing. I was never a big fan of going to the doctor because
I always seemed to have either medicine that I didn’t care for or
having to have a needle. That’s when he would actually come to
the house. Dr. Drover was gruffer, and I guess he wasn’t going to
put up with my nonsense. They were in Bay Roberts and they
would come for a visit when necessary. The needle that I had,
I guess, was some sort of antibiotic. Mom used to say I started
screaming when he came around the point, which would’ve
been where the Legion is today, and of course that would’ve been
almost a mile away but visible from our house. I was looking
through the window for him but when his car came around the
point I would start screaming at that point and didn’t stop till it
was over. Was not a big fan of needles. –Jeanette Russell
HOME REMEDIES
43
HOME REMEDIES
My Grandmother, Mary Jane Gosse, had a ‘cure’ for migraine
headaches. I’m familiar with it having been her patient several
times. The treatment was this. A dark green cabbage leaf was
soaked in strong vinegar, place on your forehead and carefully
tied on with a sock, nothing else, and kept there until the
headache was gone. My guess is that the stinging of the strong
vinegar hurt more and the headache was soon forgotten.
–Wesley Gosse, Stories and Stuff Spaniards Bay, page 31
Patricia Rodgers. Photo by Andrea McGuire. 2017.
44
HOME REMEDIES
The only way to cure frostbite is to rub cold water on it. Not warm
water—cold water. –Edward Crane
I had fevers a lot and mom just used cold water, and cold cloths.
Anything to bring down the fever. –Deborah Noel
We used to use buttercups put them underneath your chin to see
if you liked butter. –Shelia White
They would pop out their own teeth. I know that because Dad
told me that Pop took out his jaw tooth when he had a bad
tooth. –Eyvonne Harris
For heartburn they used to take some sort of solution. My fa-ther
would as he used to have heartburn. I don’t know what it
was but we weren’t allowed to touch it anyway. It was liquid
and it fizzes a little bit whatever it was and made little bubbles
come up. –Jennie Sheppard
I know often when we were sick—I don’t know if this was a
trick—but we would often get tea with bread in it or toast and
they would mix it up I know when
my dad was sick mom used to make
him pap. They used to call it, pap. Or
it could be cookies and tea. But tea
I think was a remedy for anything.
–Deborah Noel
[My nan] would put packing up in
your nose. You would take a bit of
Evening Telegram (St. John's,
N.L.), 1900-10-05 Page 37.
45
HOME REMEDIES
sack cloth and dip it in either hot or cold water. I think she used
cold water but I’m not sure. Just make it up into a little ball and
put that up in your nose and put your head back. Eventually [the
nosebleed] would stop and if it didn’t stop then you definitely had
something more wrong with you. –Eyvonne Harris
If we had a headache I remember mom putting on the vinegar
and brown paper. They would take the piece of brown paper and
they would spot it with vinegar and then put it on your head and
then you would have to lay flat on the daybed in the kitchen and
you would lay flat on that till you would say, “Oh my headache is
getting better.” Sometimes of course you would say it to get that
off your head as well. I think it did [work]! Really I think it did.
–Jennie Sheppard
Tonic—wormwood. My grandmother had a patch of wormwood up
in her garden, and every fall she used to make a tonic from it. She
used to put it in bottles. If you got down in the winter time, she would
give you this wormwood, it was called. Like if your appetite got low,
or if you know how sometimes you’re feeling blue? She’d give you
this as a pick-me-up. Kind of a pick-me-up. A tonic. –Dot O’Brien
[Nan] used to do some weird things that woman. Anytime anyth-ing
was hurt she would bandage you up so that you couldn’t move
it. Probably it was the same thing as a cast. If you hurt your should-er
or your elbow. I remember I had my elbow hurt and she would
just wrap it and wrap it and wrap it and then you would keep it like
that for three days. If you sprain your wrist or something like that
you just go and get one of those bandages and put it on and three
days after it’s irritating but it is usually fine. –Eyvonne Harris
46
HOME REMEDIES
Now this is a different one. If you had an earache—this is way,
way back now, first when I was a really little girl, because I
had forgotten about it—they would take a little bit of wadding,
we’d call it, out of the aspirin bottles—I don’t even know if we
could buy it, so if you had any wadding, you held onto it. For an
earache, you’d take a little bit of wadding, and they’d get you
to pee on it. Then they’d stick that in your ear. Now we didn’t
know if the peeing on it warmed the wadding, or what it did. Not
everybody did it, but my grandmother did it with us. It seemed
after a while to stop it. Now, I don’t know. Maybe we just told
her, because we didn’t want to do it. It was kind of gross. But
she just said, “Now, just a little small drop,” and she said, “It
makes it nice and warm.” Now, maybe she was only telling us
that, I don’t know where that came from. There were a couple
of families around—when we’d get talking, we’d say, “Did you
ever pee on the, you know,” and someone said, “Yes, and I hated
that,” you know, but as we got a little bit older she stopped it,
because she knew we weren’t going to do it anyway, I suppose.
But that’s way, way, way back. –Patricia Rodgers
Way back when there was no such thing as going to a store to buy
rubber clothes or anything like that. Women would have a sack
of flour—100 pound cloth bags—or sugar, same thing. Once they
emptied the bag, then the bag would be washed and hung out to
dry. They always had a source of cod liver oil at the fishing stage,
in a barrel. They’d go to the fishing stage and get a bucketful of
cod liver oil. Once the cloth was dry on the line, they would take it
in, cut out the pattern for a jacket, and they’d cut out the pattern
for a pair of pants, for the fisherman. When that was all sewed
together, then the bucket of cod liver oil would be put on the stove
47
HOME REMEDIES
and brought up to a simmer or low boil, then the jacket would be
submerged into the bucket of oil. Then it would be taken outdoors,
taken out of the bucket, and hung on the clothesline. Same thing
with the pants. When it was totally dried, then the jacket and the
pants were totally waterproof. That was oil clothes, that was what
it was called. But the edge of the sleeve would sometimes cause
a little bit of soreness around the wrist, by the edge of the sleeve.
That was called waterpups. It would get infected sometimes, a
little bit of a lump, so they had to wear a chain on their wrist, and
the chain rubbing back and forth would rub the tops off the little
sore, and it would then get better. –Ralph Barrett
Vinegar. Courtesy of Pixabay.
48
SORE THROAT
I grew up with rheumatic fever which is caused by the strep virus
so I have memories of having a sore throat for years. I remember
being fed a lot of eggnog and custards but I don’t actually
remember anything being given to me. –Deborah Noel
If you had a sore throat you would put a teaspoon of salt into
about half a glass of lukewarm water and you gargle your throat
about three or four times a day like that. That seemed to be pretty
effective because it took all the old gunk out of your throat. It did
help to clear your throat up. –Peter Lane
My nan would steep the dandelion tops. She would steep those
and she would put molasses, sweet molasses. When she made
the poultice she would have had to use the dark molasses. That
would be for if you had a sore throat or something like that. I
remember she used to go out and snip them. I don’t know what
else she used to do it with. –Eyvonne Harris
I remember my mother in law saying that they used kerosene and
molasses. Many people made it into a candy—they would boil it up
and that was supposed to be good for coughs and sore throats. A
friend of mine his mother would make up a concoction of kerosene
and molasses and put in a bottle of aspirin and make it into a
candy. They swore by that. She lived in Rocky Harbour down on
the Northern Peninsula and apparently she was well known for
that concoction and people liked it too, so I would think there was
probably more molasses than kerosene. –Jeanette Russell
For gargling I know we would use salt water. I often had sore
throats. As a matter of fact as a child I had strep throat and so I
49
would need to have visits from the
doctor. I dreaded to have a needle.
But one of the cures that my mom
always had on hand for me was to
steep out blackcurrant jam. Until
recently, and I am talking within
the past year or so, I would never not
have a jar of blackcurrant jar in the
fridge. Not for jam purposes to eat,
but to always have on hand for sore
throats. It was good and it was one
of the few things that was agreeable
to take because of the jam and the
high sugar content. It would be
steeped out like tea and you would
sip the hot liquid and that was be
very soothing. I believe there is
actually some real health benefit
to that. I think there is actually
something in the blackcurrant that
does actually work to sooth sore
throats; it is not just a folk tale. Like
many folk cures it does have a basis.
–Jeanette Russell
Dandelion tops. Courtesy
of Pixabay.
SORE THROAT
Bayer Aspirin. Western Star
(Corner Brook, N.L.),
1928-03-07 Page 4.
50
COLD AND FLU
For colds and stuff for sore throats sometimes you would boil up
a little bit of molasses with sugar and mix that up with a warm
cup of tea with a bit of orange or lemon or something like that in
it and drink that. –Peter Lane
I remember in my house, that if you had a cold on your chest,
mom would always rub Vicks, heat Vicks in a saucer, tea cup
saucer, on the stove, lay it on the stove, and the Vicks would melt,
and when it was still warm, you’d rub it on your chest and around
your neck. –Judy Symonds
I know one remedy they used to use was called ‘senna’ because
my mother used to make it for me and it was the most terrible
thing ever you drank in your life. [Laughter] Oh I tell you. It was
terrible. All I know is she steeped it like tea. It was something
like a tea. Where it came from—I don’t know. –Clarice Adams
Whenever we had trouble breathing, [my mother] would boil hot
water and put in some mint or eucalyptus leaves or some such.
We would take a towel and put it around the bowl, and we would
breathe in the fumes. This would help to clear the sinuses and
clear out our nose. –Sally Peddle
I remember we got cod liver oil every day every one of us kids
every day. That was for colds and stuff like that. Mom would use
the real cod liver oil and not the capsules. We would all have to
stand up and take a spoonful of it and she would squirt a quarter
of an orange in our mouth. But my grandfather used to drink cod
liver oil, just drink it from the bottle. –Deborah Noel
51
COLD AND FLU
Another cure that I remember specifically, because my brother
had the croup—what they called croup in the ‘40s and ‘50s. He
would have a mustard plaster put on his chest to try and stop the
coughing. The mustard plaster, I believe, was made with flour
in an old flannel shirt. The flour was cooked, and then mum put
in the mustard—either mustard seed, or prepared mustard, and
mixed it up, and the heat, I guess, from the warmed flour must
have been kept on the chest to help him. –Sally Peddle
Vicks Vaporub. Western Star (Corner
Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 20.
Mustard seeds. Courtesy of Pixabay.
52
STOMACH ISSUES
Fruit sauce was a wonderful thing [for stomach sickness]. Alka
Seltzer they would probably call it now. –Ruby Rees
They used to give them castor oil every night. My father and
them they used to get a spoonful of castor oil. That was probably
for their stomachs. To regulate their bowels. –Eyvonne Harris
If you had an upset stomach, it was baking soda and warm water.
Just a little, about half a teaspoon of baking soda and warm water,
maybe about an inch at the bottom of the glass, well mixed, and it
would either make you sick to your stomach, or you’d bring up gas
from your stomach, and then you’d be better. So it worked either
way. –Sally Peddle
I know my grandmother went a lot by ginger and so does my
mom. Just mix maybe a teaspoon of ginger with boiling water,
add a bit of brown sugar or something to it and that would settle
your stomach down. Also black currant jam was a common one.
Same thing, just put maybe a tablespoon of black currant jam,
fill it up with hot water and sip on it. That would certainly help.
I’m sure as kids growing up we would have had aspirin because
that’s been around for a long, long time. I don’t think we had
Tylenol or any of those things but for sure aspirin was available.
So you would be given aspirin if you had a headache or a fever or
something of that sort. –Dianne Carr
I don’t remember having too many problems [with a bad stom-ach]
but my grandmother did and one of the things that she
would love to have would be a cup of ginger. So we would use the
ground ginger spice, and sugar, and boiling water and she would
53
STOMACH ISSUES
Ginger root. Courtesy of Pixabay.
Juniper. Courtesy of Pixabay.
54
STOMACH ISSUES
Black currant. Courtesy of Pixabay.
55
STOMACH ISSUES
sip that. Now as a child I always thought that that was a pleasant
drink for her rather than having a cup of tea and I can remember
making it for her. Apparently I was able to get the ratio of ginger
to sugar down pretty well. But I’m sure now that it was probably
a stomach upset and I know she took milk of magnesia which she
told us was for a bad stomach but I think actually it’s a laxative.
I’m not sure about that but she took a lot of milk of magnesia and
ginger. –Jeanette Russell
[My father] would go in when he was cutting his wood—juniper
grew up in there—so he would bring the juniper out. He’d get a
brown paper bag, and put the juniper down in it, and close it off
and you’d hang it up somewhere so it would dry it out. Then they
used it the same as you would tea leaves. You’d steep it in the tea.
If you had a pain, or an ache, or an upset stomach, that’s what
you had, juniper. I kind of liked it. From what I remember—you
had a tea strainer, we always had a tea strainer—and you’d put
so many leaves in it, and then as you put it in you could see how
strong it was, so then you could take it away and put more water
in or whatever. They used to put a little bit of sugar sometimes,
but that would cure you if you had an upset stomach or pain in
your stomach. –Patricia Rodgers
56
ALCOHOL
They’d give you a little sip of brandy or whiskey if you had an
upset stomach, you know, that kind of thing. That was quite
common. And probably the reason why I like whiskey today.
[laughs] –Judy Symonds
When I was a teenager and suffering from menstruation cramps
we were sometimes given a hot toddy, even then as a young child
and that did help somewhat. So that was kind of special. A little
bit of whisky, sugar, and a lot of hot water. –Jeanette Russell
Sometimes if you had a colicky baby my grandmother always
used to say you put a teaspoon of whisky and mix it up with a
little bit of sugar and feed that to the baby and it would help
the baby settle down a little bit. A colicky baby is a baby that
cries constantly no matter what you do. You try to comfort it
or soothe it or whatever it still keeps on crying. It can be pretty
stressful, especially on a young mother sometimes that she’s
not getting enough sleep and then you have a baby that is crying
24/7. –Peter Lane
I remember my nan, and she told me her mother, they always
made their wine, usually blueberry. Even the children before
they would go to bed in the nighttime, you could have a hot
toddy. When I used to stay with her I would have a hot toddy
every night and pass out, cold junk. It probably relaxed your
nerves. –Eyvonne Harris
Well, you know, [alcohol] was given to children. It would be just
a little bit on a teaspoon, you know, or a small spoon, a little
coffee spoon, that kind of thing, I can remember. It might have
57
ALCOHOL
been mixed with a little bit of jam. Because when they would give
kids say aspirin, years ago, nobody would swallow an aspirin, and
kids were given usually half an aspirin. So they’d mash it up on the
spoon, and they’d mix a bit of jam or something with it, and then it
was more palatable to take. It disguised it, right. –Judy Symonds
I know you take the raisins with the gin. Could you tell me ab-out
that?
I went to something here at the theatre, on my own, and I was
sitting next to somebody I didn’t know, a woman. We got talking,
Judy Symonds holding her gin soaked raisins. 2017. Photo by Andrea McGuire.
58
ALCOHOL
and I had said to her—
and probably rubbing my
knee—I said I had a bad
knee, and she said, “You got
arthritis?” I said, “Yeah.”
She said, “Gin and raisins
is the answer. I’ve been
taking it for ten years.” So
I said, “What do you do?”
On the other side of me
was another woman. She
said, “Yeah, I take them
too!” I did look it up, and
didn’t do anything, and
then probably six or eight months ago, I was talking to a cousin
of mine who lives up in Bay Roberts. I was telling her that I had
some trouble with my knee, arthritis. She said, “Did you ever try
the gin and raisins?” I said, “No, but somebody told me about
it.” “Well,” she said, “it works for me.” I still didn’t do anything
until now, my knee is getting worse. I looked up the recipe just to
make sure. It’s not much of a recipe. It just said to take whatever
amount of raisins that you wanted, in a container, and cover them
with gin. My cousin said it should be Gillray’s Gin, or something,
like the more expensive gin as opposed to the cheaper gin, and I
only found out that some of the cheaper gins are flavoured with
juniper extract, whereas the more expensive gins are made
straight from juniper. But I just took whatever gin I had there
that I would drink with a tonic, you just let them soak until the
raisins soak up all the gin. Some people take them two or three
times of the day, but most people that I know take them in the
Gin soaked raisins. 2017. Photo by Andrea
McGuire.
59
ALCOHOL
morning or when they’re going to bed in the night, right. It said to
take nine. That’s it. My cousin said it worked for her right away,
but I’ve only taken it a couple of times.
Does everybody take nine?
Yup. Anyone who does it says, “Don’t take anymore.” So if you
slip and take ten, I don’t know what happens. [laughter] I take
them out, I count out the nine, and I got a little small dish, and
I just put them in that so I’ll remember to take them. I’ve got to
make sure I tell my kids this, in case somebody asks them down
the road, “Well my mother ate raisins soaked in gin.” [laughs]
–Judy Symonds
Black and White Scotch Whisky. Western Star
(Corner Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 17.
60
HANGOVERS
Hangovers? An egg and milk mix that together that would be a
good dose of it and then have another beer in top of it when you
get up in the morning. That’s about all I know. I always used to
hear, “Have another beer.” I mean if you got drunk last night the
last thing you want to face is another beer. –Eyvonne Harris
I can remember my mother got drunk once in her life and the next
morning when she had a hangover it was my sister’s wedding the
day after and I can remember my father giving me some money
to go to the store to buy my mom a pop and I can remember
coming back with it thinking my mother sinned, because I was
in my really religious phase, and she gets rewarded! I remember
thinking should I morally let my mother have this? Or should I
drink it? –Deborah Noel
Baking soda. Courtesy of Pixabay. Butter. Courtesy of Pixabay.
61
BURNS & ITCHES
There was a lot of stinging nettles when we were growing up,
and would they ever itch. Oh, I hated it when I fell in the stinging
nettles. My parents used to get some baking soda and put a little
drop of water in it, and just rub that over where—because they
used to come out in little bubbles—rub the baking soda over it,
and that would stop the sting. But boy, would they ever sting. I’d
fall in them once a week, I’m sure I would. –Patricia Rodgers
There was a lady here called Mrs. Sis Walsh—she’s long dead
now—but she used to make a salve for boils, for burns, for sores.
Everybody went to her. It was called “Mrs. Sis Walsh’s Salve.”
Everybody went—not only the people from Cape Broyle, they
came from other communities for it, too. I have no idea what she
put in it. I can barely remember her. She was an older woman
when we were teenagers. But when she died, her son kept making
it—he was a bachelor and he was a very good friend of Dad’s. He
kept making the salve, but I have no idea what she put in it. But
was that ever popular. –Dot O’Brien
If there was a burn, if somebody burned their hand or something
on fire or the stove, the common thing was to put butter on it
which was certainly as we know now not the good thing to do. Or
lard of some type and then bandage it up. Baking soda was and
still is a great thing to use for many, many things. So baking soda
baths if somebody had a rash or chicken pox or anything that was
itching, if you had a sunburn, baking soda was always a go to for
those kinds of things. –Dianne Carr
Rub it with butter. My father-in-law had a forge, he was a
wheelwright so I’m sure there were burns quite a bit and sparks
62
BURNS & ITCHES
or whatever so putting butter on was a very common practice
for burns. I don’t know what they would have done for sunburn.
I don’t think we burned as easily back in the day. It seemed like
you would be out there all day and you would be trying to get
tanned so you would be coating yourself with oils hoping that
you would be turning brown but that never worked for it. It was
always burn, peel, be white again and maybe burn again if you
decided to stay outside. –Jeanette Russell
63
POULTICE
Bread poultice was used for everything. If you had a splinter
or anything they would wrap your finger up into it over night.
–Nathan Barrett
Growing up, I was susceptible to styes. I can remember my mom
using her wedding ring and crossing the stye—I don’t know how
many times, and I don’t know if that did anything—and also putting
a poultice—you used poultices for a lot of things. –Judy Symonds
Nathan and Margaret Barrett. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett.
64
POULTICE
I do remember poultice for a burn. It’s funny I asked my mom
about that and she doesn’t remember [what it was made of]. She
said something like warm bread and that. But I remember burning
my hand on the stove and having the marks of the stove and mom
using bread and some other stuff I think. Dried mustard, maybe?
Wrapping it around my hand and I don’t have any marks. I don’t
even remember any pain. –Deborah Noel
Festering—as far as I know, it would get infected, it would be red—
you know … basically, it got infected, and mom would know that it
wasn’t healing over or, you know, knitting together, so you’d put
a poultice on it and it would draw out the infection. You probably
only had to do that once or twice. You’d put it on and they didn’t
cover it with gauze and stuff like that, it was usually flannelette,
that was a wonderful thing. I can see mom now: they would tie it
around, and then they would tear it—so it would tear down, and
then they’d use these two shorter strings to tie. –Judy Symonds
I [had] a friend whose mother was into folk remedies and when
we were in university together she had a problem under her arm.
She was talking to her mom and her mom said, “Now you know
you have to put a bread poultice on that.” She said, “Mom these
are old folk remedies. I’m sure the doctor can find something
for this.” So off she went to the doctor in town and she went in
to see him and he looked at her and he said, “Do you know how
to make a bread poultice?” [Laughter] So that is what she used
and it was effective. I can’t ever remember having one myself
but I do know my mother in law, she did that a lot. That was a
common thing for her. –Jeanette Russell
65
POULTICE
Well that’s the problem you tell the doctors about the home
remedies you used then and they would laugh at you. I’ll give you
for instance one time here when Doctor O’Byrne was out in this
clinic and I was after cutting my toenails and my big toenail I
cut it in until it went to the quick and it got infected. It wasn’t
getting any better so I decided to see Doctor O’Byrne. When
I went out he gave me some pills to take but they didn’t do any
good. So I decided to make a bread poultice, put sugar in it and
do up my toe and let it stay on overnight. So that’s what I did. The
next morning when I got up and took the poultice off my toe it
was after breaking and all the inflammation came out. A couple
of days after that he told me to come back in two or three days if
it was no better so when I went back I had my toe cured. I did it
myself. “So Mrs. Drover,” he said, “how did you do that?” I said, “I
made a bread poultice and put it on my toe before I went to bed.”
He said, “What’s that? I haven’t heard tell of that.” “Doctor,” I
said, “this old remedy we used years gone by when anybody had
a cut or anyone had an infection we couldn’t afford to run to a
doctor.” He couldn’t get over that. –Pearl Drover
They put molasses into it too. My dad used to make it. Dad made
it for Mom when she had her leg infected. That’s what they used
to use. Boil a bit of bread, mix it up with molasses and put that
on and it would draw it out. If you had an infection it would
draw it out. –Eyvonne Harris
They used to use a lot of things. Like when you were talking
about the mustard. That’s what nan used to put on. I was over to
her place once and I had my ribs hurt and I don’t know why she
66
POULTICE
packed me in with mustard and bread and wrapped me up in a
big old half a sheet. –Eyvonne Harris
Well I took a piece of white bread, plain white bread, and I boiled
the kettle and I boiled the bread in a dish and when boiled to get
the yeast and that out of it I strained it. I squeezed the water out
of it. Then I put a bit of sugar in it. I put it in a cloth and I stuck
it on my toe. It worked, cured my toe! Doctor O’Byrne couldn’t
get over what a bread poultice could do on your skin. He was
dumbfounded. –Pearl Drover
That would’ve just been white bread, broken up and put into
a bowl with boiling water and it had to be applied hot. So you
White bread. Courtesy of Pixabay.
67
POULTICE
would get it to a consistency where I guess you could get a ball
made out of it so it would be very hot and maybe because of the
malleability of the bread you could put it wherever it needed to go
and the heat would draw out the substance of a boil or whatever
was there that was causing the infection or whatever. So that
would be the use of bread poultice. –Jeanette Russell
Well poultices were, I guess people made up poultices in different
ways and some people had, just used like a flour and water almost
like a paste and they may have added other things to it I wouldn’t
really begin to think what they – some people used to call them
mustard plasters and I think those were like actually mustard,
probably they used, I suppose they could have used vinegar I
suppose to some extent that would be stinging, so I can almost see
that happening maybe to draw out the infection. –Dianne Carr
As far as I can remember, it was bread and water or milk—some
liquid—not alcohol, one thing they didn’t put alcohol in. It was just
a paste—and I don’t think there was any other herb or anything,
that was all. As that dried, it drew out any infection, or if there
was any pus or anything, that drew it out. If you had a cut, you’d
clean it and put some iodine on it, and if it festered up, which was
the term—they’d put a poultice on it, and that would draw out the
bad stuff. –Judy Symonds
How long would you leave it on for?
It would depend, you know. Sometimes it would dry out a little
bit and it would become uncomfortable. Sometimes you’d have
68
POULTICE
it on for hours, and sometimes they’d put it on before you went to
bed. They’d look at it, and they’d see how bad it was, or if it needed
anything, so that depended on how long we had to keep it on. I
hated it. –Patricia Rodgers
My grandmother—I remember one time. I was at a birthday party,
and I spilled a cup of boiling hot tea right here on my leg. I had on
some kind of pants, and I had to get that off. I went down to my
grandmother. I was crying with the pain. My grandmother had a
barrel of lime out in the stable. It was used to do the lathes. It was
called whitewash. They used to do the lathes with it every summer,
and their houses. It would peel off during the winter, so it had to be
redone every spring. Your house, or your lathes—your fence. And
she said to me, “Honey, I’ll tell you what you’ll do now to cure that.”
She said, “You go out now and get the water,”—because the lime
used to settle to the bottom, and the water was on top. She said,
“You go out and get some of that lime water that’s on top of the lime
barrel out there.” Everybody had a lime barrel in them days. I went
out and got it and brought it in. And she made a poultice. Piece of
cloth, and she soaked it in the lime water. She laid it on my leg. It
was a really big burn. And when she laid it on my leg, I thought I
was going to die. Oh, what a pain. When the pain went away, that
was it. It never pained after, and it healed up. I couldn’t believe it. A
terrific pain when she put it on, but it worked. –Dot O’Brien
69
CUTS
FRANKUM -- It’s the solidified, pale pink dried up tree sap that
accumulated usually on the tree knots and where the branches
have been cut. It was a brittle and extremely hard substance,
glassy in appearance. This was a special ‘chewing’ gum and had
a flavour of the wood it came from with a mixture of wintergreen.
The first half hour or so was pure jaw labour. After that the texture
changed somewhat and you could chew the frankum endlessly.
It had its own special quality too -- it kept your teeth squeaky
clean. –Wesley Gosse, Stories and Stuff (II), Spaniard’s Bay
NL, page 31.
I’ve heard of people getting sap off a tree. Myrrh. If there was a cut,
you’d put tree sap on the incision. It would act like glue. Mostly I
would think it would be [from] fir [trees]. –Ralph Barrett
They used to use cobwebs if you had a cut. Mom told me she
had her finger cut and nan went out and got all the cobwebs
out of the corners to put on it and apparently that would hold it
together. –Eyvonne Harris
Some people used to use fat pork. Scald the fat pork and put it
on their cuts. That’s like if you had warts on your hands you
could use fat pork and put it on your hands. Fat pork boiled out
with butter would cure the works. I’ve heard a lot of people tell
that. –Pearl Drover
A lot of times some of the older people would sew it on their own.
Sew it together with whatever they used to use. They also used to
chew tobacco to put on it so it wouldn’t bleed more until they got
to a doctor. There wasn’t many hospitals then. You would hardly
70
CUTS
get to a hospital because you had to go to St. John’s then. Not like
it is today. The Carbonear hospital wasn’t there. –Clarice Adams
Turpentine, of course. That cured everything. I mean if you got a
cut—if we cut ourselves when we were young, Dad went right to
the tree. Broke the blister, and got the turpentine.
Do you know what kind of tree?
It wasn’t spruce—var, I guess. Because there’s no bubbles in
spruce. I think the bubbles are in the var. –Dot O’Brien
Sap also know as turpentine, or myrrh. Courtesy of Pixabay.
71
CUTS
When I think about cuts I know that a lot of people used the sap
from trees. Some people referred to it as myrrh so that would’ve
been from spruce or fir trees. I remember my dad telling a story
of him having a bad cut when he was young and they used flour.
So he had gone I think to a neighbour’s home and they put on a
handful of flour and the blood still came through and it was
applied three times and eventually that was fine. So I guess
whatever you had on hand that you thought would work. So that
was a good one. I think that would work - I think that still would
work. Although we don’t have to do that now. –Jeanette Russell
Cobwebs. Courtesy of Pixabay.
72
LICE
My mother would keep us right clean and that’s what lice would
go for. Anyone clean. I remember one time I picked up lice then
they had [to get] the fine tooth comb and get a piece of white paper
and comb it out of your, and when they combed them they would
kill them with the back of their thumb. –Edward Crane
The fine toothed comb was the first defence for that. So you
would have to sit there for a long period of time and your hair
washed and then combed through to take the nits away. If that
were the case. I can remember going on holiday to Bell Island to
visit my cousins and coming home with them and having my hair
cut. We all had long hair then and so my hair got a bowl shape. I
can remember my dad cutting my hair and I think that may have
been the first time I had short hair then and I was probably five
at the time, maybe seven. It was a regular occurrence. If you were
scratching, you were going to have your head checked because
you had a big family, and things spread. –Jeanette Russell
Head lice, that was a common, common problem. It still is of
course. It always has been in the schools. Mom would put brown
paper or newspaper on the floor and we would sit on a chair and
she would brush all our hair up over our heads and down over our
heads and a fine, fine tooth comb. It was this powder this kind of
really smelly type of powder and that would sprinkle in your hair
and then she would leave that for a while I guess to kill the nits, to
kill the lice. Then you would comb them out. You would see them
fall out on the paper. We were always forewarned: Don’t sit next
by such and such because they have lice. Don’t put on anybody
else’s hats and keep your hair up. We would get haircuts by mom
and dad, you would sit on the chair and just get your haircut and
73
LICE
that was it there was no picking out what hairstyle you wanted.
I mean if the bowl fit on your head and you cut around the bowl
that’s what you got. That’s what everybody had to do. We rinsed
our hair too. I think vinegar was used quite a bit in those days
because it was easy to get and pretty inexpensive. –Dianne Carr
Mecca Ointment advertisement. The old time songs
and poetry of Newfoundland. Doyle, Gerald S. 1940.
PRACTICAL RECIPES
& HOUSEHOLD
PRODUCTS
75
WALLPAPER PASTE
Wallpaper paste. Mix up flour into a paste and place it on what they
call sheeting paper then and stick it on the wall! –Mike Whalen
That was just flour and water and just make it thick and then
mom would put it on the back of her paper and when we got older
we would have to help her till she got it stuck on and you would
have to try to keep it on until it got hard enough. That was first
when we were young but after that there was already pasted and
wet paper. –Jennie Sheppard
Wallpaper paste, I can remember that plain, I mean—years ago,
before Christmas everybody painted. You’d go in a house and
you’d smell paint. That was the thing to do, or you’d put a new bit
of wallpaper on or something, so that was the kind of paste that
we used, just a bit of flour and water.
Why do you think it was before Christmas?
Because people prepared for Christmas in the fall, but it was
mainly—from my recollection, it was done for Christmas. Even
with all my friends, it didn’t matter what religion they were, but
it just seemed like that was the thing. –Judy Symonds
76
RECIPES
I can remember mom brushing with baking soda and water for
whitening her teeth. –Deborah Noel
We used toothpaste but if you ran out then you would use
baking soda. That’s what we used in the household and that
would be a common thing I think for a lot of people. I don’t know
of any other thing that would’ve been used for brushing your
teeth. –Jeanette Russell
Now we didn’t have toothpaste, we didn’t have store bought
toothpaste, but mum would mix up baking soda and salt in a
bowl, and then she would put it in this small glass container.
And that was our toothpaste, that salt and baking soda mix-ture.
–Sally Peddle
We would wash our hair with soap. We had shampoo in a bottle; I
do remember looking at magazines and the shampoo I recall being
advertised in those days was called Breck shampoo. I can see
those ads now in my mind’s eye and they always had the models
with the beautiful glossy hair. But other than that I don’t recall
really a whole lot. Sunlight soap and I’m not sure when Ivory soap
came on the market. But I know that most of the time it was and
you would get, we had a pantry and there was a sink in the pantry
and we would go in there when we needed to wash our hair. We
would get up on a chair and put our heads down in the sink and
then mom or dad would wash our hair with the soap. For rinsing it
out we would usually just take a jug of water and pour it over your
head and rinse it out because I don’t think, I know in early days
we still didn’t have water in the house. Then we would also rinse
our hair with vinegar so that was something that was done like the
77
RECIPES
vinegar would get all the soap out and would make your hair really,
really squeaky clean. –Dianne Carr
Breck. The Daily News (St. John's, N.L.),
1958-05-05 Page 16.
78
CLEANING
For cleaners they would have none of the newer things that are
on the go now. But you would have sunlight soap for practically
everything. –Jennie Sheppard
They had Sunlight soap, in bars and people made their own soap
out of lye and fat or something. –Mike Whalen
My mom and them, you would see them with the iron ore, clothes.
It is not easy to get iron ore out of your clothes from the mines.
They would have the big washing tub with the scrubbing board,
and the blood would be coming out of their fingers. Scrubbing
with the sunlight soap on that washboard trying to get the iron
ore out of the clothes. –Edward Crane
Then they’d hang the laundry out on
the line, and the sheets—a lot of them,
they’d put it on the ground, on the
grass, if it was a sunny day, and that
was supposed to bleach them. Because
I can remember looking out in the
garden, and there’d be white sheets all
over, because that’s all they had, was
white sheets, they’d make them out of
flour sacks or whatever they had, right?
Then there was always a clothesline, of
course. From one end of the kitchen to
the other. –Patricia Rodgers
Sunlight Soap. Western Star
(Corner Brook, N.L.), 1944-
11-11 Page 26.
79
PRODUCTS
Cod Liver Oil - The Gerald S. Doyle blue bottle of cod liver oil
was a sure sign of spring. It too was given to school children as a
diet supplement. Much of it never reached home. –Wesley Gosse,
Stories and Stuff Spaniards Bay, page MORE 1
I can remember Friar’s Balsam, that was something. And if
you had a toothache or something, they put Friar’s Balsam
on it. –Judy Symonds
In them days they had although you don’t see it around too much
anymore - Mecca Ointment. In a can. It would cure anything.
Burns, scalds, anything. –Mike Whalen
We were given cod liver oil in school, and we were forced to
take it at home. A lot of people broke it on the way home, but you
know, we always had cod liver oil, or cod liver oil capsules, in
later years. –Judy Symonds
Mom said they used to give them a drink. They would get the
drink at recess like ovaltine. Mom said she used to be excited
to go to school just to get that drink. It tasted like malted milk
and they would do that because children were starving and the
poverty was so great. –Deborah Noel
Now old people mixed up a lot of stuff years ago with remedies.
For colds grandmother and them would give you nine drops of
liniment. Nine little drops of liniment, Minard’s Liniment, it was
white in a bottle. Minard’s Liniment and you would take nine
drops of that in about a quarter of a glass of water, stir it up and
give you that to drink. –Edward Crane
80
PRODUCTS
When I was in about grade, I’d say three or four, for two or three
years, the government provided Cocomalt in a great big tin.
Recess time, the teacher would put the kettle on, just before
recess, and boil it. We all had to bring a mug to school. Then
she’d come, and she’d put a spoonful or so in each cup, and we’d
drink the Cocomalt. It was provided by the government, I think,
for us children, to make sure we were getting some vitamins or
whatever was in it, I don’t know, but our parents couldn’t afford
to buy it, so we’d have a cup everyday. –Patricia Rodgers
Another—now, Friar’s Balsam, did you ever hear of that? It’s
kind of in a blue bottle. It was, you know, since I’ve been married,
you still can get it—but then, dad used to take—another thing
for a sore throat—he used to take a little bit of sugar, or maybe a
spoonful, and put a little bit of this Friar’s Balsam on it. Well, it
was the most horrible taste ever you could taste. He would get
us to take it down. You could feel
it going down, but it cured the
sore throat. So my sister hated it
that much that if she had a sore
throat, she wouldn’t tell mom or
dad, because it was so hard to
take. –Patricia Rodgers
We got cod liver oil when we went
to school, they gave us a bottle
every year. I hated it. Hated it.
When we’d be home our parents
would make us drink it, because
Doyle’s Pure Newfoundland Cod
Liver Oil. Western Star (Corner
Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 18.
81
PRODUCTS
we got it in school and it was good for us. Some of the boys would
have it drank before they got home, but I’d be the longest time.
Before each meal, mom would give me a spoonful. I hated it. Oh,
it used to make me so sick. That was all government supplied
then, I suppose, it had to be. So we’d get a bit of nutrition in us or
something, but anyway, it was all fun. You know, you just went
with the flow, and there was no arguing. –Patricia Rodgers
One thing for a sore throat, we would—my parents would boil
molasses on the stove, and when it’d get boiled—from what I can
remember, now—they put a few drops of kerosene oil in it. And
they let that boil up, and they’d take it off, and they’d give us a
spoonful of that.
I heard of someone putting Minard’s liniment in the molasses.
Yeah, that’s another one. Now kerosene oil, I don’t know why they
did that, because that was for the lamps, right, but a couple of little
drops, and they’d give it to us, so. It cleared it up. But the Minard’s
liniment is another one, I forgot about that. –Patricia Rodgers
Oh and know something else that mom used to do? If you had a
sore throat, they would heat the molasses. Now, if you were in
Norman’s Cove it would be blackstrap molasses. We couldn’t buy
blackstrap molasses where I lived, but if you went to downtown
St. John’s, you probably could—but there was molasses, and mom
would put in Minard’s Liniment. Which mom had until the day
she died, or the day she went in the home, and it was probably
outdated, probably ten, fifteen years, but she swore by it. She
put a little tiny bit of that in molasses. Then you would put the
82
PRODUCTS
spoon down in the molasses, and you would twirl it, and as the
molasses cooled, it stayed on the spoon, and you just sucked on
it like a lollipop. The medicine of the Minard’s Liniment was
soothing, the molasses was coating that, so that was something
that we did. I can remember that. –Judy Symonds
There were a fair number patent medicines available and used with
varying degrees of success. I guess in most family medicine chests -
or for us for sure there would have been iodine, mercurochrome.
Nobody wanted to have iodine! So the mercurochrome was red
and didn’t hurt. There was always a bottle of olive oil and it was
written on the label that is was not intended for internal use. That
would have been for earache or for wax of the ears too. So warm oil
would be dropped in. I know with my own children, my son had an
earache one of the things my husband would do was blow smoke
in his ear and it seemed to relieve it. That is something they did
commonly in Bay Roberts - where I lived when I was married. So
that was a common cure there for that. –Jeanette Russell
The home remedies that we had were mostly iodine and then
mercurochrome came on the market. There were self remedies
like that. Vinegar, baking soda was used in a lot of things like
poultices or bandages. So everybody just kind of did the best they
could with what they had. Certainly there were no drug stores
and nothing close to us. Even doctors – I mean you would never
take up a doctor’s time with just minor cuts, and bruises and
things like that. People would try and look after it themselves or
else they knew a neighbour who knew how to handle a certain
type of ailment and so that’s how it was done. I mean I don’t
remember anybody in our family – unless it was a broken bone, I
83
PRODUCTS
think my brother, I think he broke his arm playing hockey, or fell
off his bike or something like that and then he had to go to the
doctor and have the bone set. But if it was like cuts, and even if
you required stitches unless it was like a huge gash you know it
was just okay keep putting bandages on it and let it heal. Myself
included, there are people walking around with scars because
we didn’t have that medical expertise. –Dianne Carr
As a young child I did not want
to eat and it caused my mother
quite a bit of concern. So one
of the things that I had to have
growing up was a tonic and
the one that was given to me
and I believe at one point my
dad actually bought a case of
it was Brick’s Tasteless. It was
not tasteless. It was horrid.
Nobody else had to have it and
I drank quarts of it. Then of
course I would get these sore
throats so they were concerned
with keeping me eating. My
siblings would probably say I
liked the attention more than
the food. –Jeanette Russell
Brick’s Tasteless. Western Star (Corner
Brook, N.L.), 1949-02-04 Page 21.
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
85
BUTTONING A HORSE
See, I didn’t grow up with
animals, even though my
grandfather did, but then
when I came out and star-ted
dealing with animals
myself, you got to deal with
the problem, you know. If
a horse is in trouble—if
they need to get a pill in
them, you’ve got to get a
pill in them, you’ve got to
figure out ways to make
things work. If you’ve got
a cow that’s calving and
you’ve got to push it back
in, you push it back in until
you can grab the legs and
finally hook their back legs.
You can kind of feel that
their back legs are different
from the front legs, and
then you’ve got to pull the
cow or the calf out.
I had a horse that got
kicked out in central
Newfoundland. Actually,
that’s where I bought it,
and I had to put it in a
Dave Dunn. 2017. Photo by Terra Barrett. pasture out there. When I
86
BUTTONING A HORSE
went to get the horse, there was a hole in the side. I had to patch
it, and I couldn’t get a vet. So I sewed buttons on the outside of
the horse. Sewed buttons on the top and bottom of the hole, and
I laced it up with a shoelace. When I brought it back here—I had
called the vet, the vet met me up in the driveway. When I took the
horse out of the trailer and she looked at it, she said, “I couldn’t
have done any better.” I never took a picture of it. Never took a
picture. I left [the buttons] there until it cured and then [the vet]
said, “You can cut them out,” so I did, I cut them off. If I sewed
them on, I could take them off.
How big were the buttons?
The cut was about that long. Wallace’s horse had caulk shoes on
it. And that’s what kicked my horse. The front caulk just caught
in the flesh, and peeled back about an eight inch cut, in kind of a
horseshoe shape, so I had to sew three buttons on there, and the
rest on top. So it was seven buttons—one, two—yes, seven buttons.
I got sutures from a drugstore—I went to a doctor, actually, in
Lewisporte, and he wouldn’t come. He said, “People will call me
a horse doctor.” So he gave me some sutures, and I went to the
drugstore. I couldn’t get any painkiller, but I bought all the orajel
they had in the store. That’s what you put on kid’s teeth, right.
So I smeared that all over the horse so that she wouldn’t flinch
when I tried to sew her. But the repercussion of it was that it was
a hot day, and while I was in there trying to do it, I was rubbing
sweat off my head—and next thing I know, my forehead went
dead, and my nose went dead, and my mouth went dead, and my
fingers went numb—oh, it was so funny trying to do it. That was
the funny part. It just made it into such a lark. –Dave Dunn
87
BUTTONING A HORSE
Diagram drawn by Dave Dunn. 2017
88
BUTTONING A HORSE
Where did you get the idea?
Someone had said that they remembered a cow getting cut on a
barbed wire fence in Clarke’s Beach. This was in a conversation
with someone down there, when I had a cow down there in
pasture on Clarke’s Beach, and someone had mentioned that—
out of the blue—that an old guy had a cow down there one time,
and he got cut open on the barbed wire fence, and buddy tried
to sew it up, and he put buttons on it, and that’s how he got the
cut closed. And when we were up there in the field [in Central
Newfoundland] and I saw the horse—oh my god, my heart broke,
because I had borrowed a trailer from Harry Bishop down in Bay
Roberts, he had a race horse down in the track in the Goulds, so he
raced every weekend, whatever. So in between races, I borrowed
his trailer to go out and bring my horse in. And when I went out to
get it, here it was, slashed open. I tried to get a vet, and I couldn’t
get a vet. I didn’t want the thing to bleed to death, so I said, I’ll do
something, and right out of the blue someone mentioned, “There
was a farmer who had a cut cow.” I said, “Yes, that’s right. And
he used buttons.” And so I said, “Wallace.” His wife was there—
Myrtle, I think it was—and he says, “Myrtle, we’ll get the buttons!
Buttons!” She came out with this cookie tin. [laughs] There must
have been 500 buttons in it. And that’s where we picked the
buttons out of it. Once you got the first one on, you got the hang of
doing it. But by then my hands were all numb. I had to look at that
finger, and tell that finger to squeeze—no, pull—you know, and
you’re telling, your mind is telling your fingers what to do. That’s
the funny part, that’s the part that I found so fascinating about it.
Anyway, finally it worked out, and I came home and all that. Like
I said, animals make everything. –Dave Dunn
89
Printed Sources:
Gosse, Wesley. Stories and Stuff Spaniard’s Bay, NL. March 2007.
Gosse, Wesley. Stories and Stuff (II) Spaniard’s Bay NL. May 2008.
Clarice Adams - Tilton
Nathan Barrett - Bishop’s Cove
Ralph Barrett - Upper Island Cove
Dianne Carr - Spaniard’s Bay
Joyce Chipman - Spaniard’s Bay
Edward Crane - Upper Island Cove/Spaniard’s Bay
Pearl Drover - Bay Roberts East/Spaniard’s Bay
Dave Dunn - Makinsons
Sarah Griffiths Ennis - Placentia
Berdina Gosse - Spaniard’s Bay
Wesley Gosse - Spaniard’s Bay
Kim Granter - St. John’s
Eyvonne Harris - Upper Island Cove
Peter Lane - St. John’s/Spaniard’s Bay
Deborah Noel - Mount Pearl/Spaniard’s Bay
Dot O’Brien - Cape Broyle
Sally Peddle - Toronto/Spaniard’s Bay
Ruby Rees - Spaniard’s Bay
Patricia Rodgers - Carbonear
Edna Roberts - Labrador/Carbonear
Jeanette Russell - Spaniard’s Bay/Bay Roberts
Jennie Sheppard - Spaniard’s Bay
Judy Symonds - St. John’s/Norman’s Cove
Mike Whalen - Spaniard’s Bay
Sheila White - Spaniard’s Bay
THANK YOU
The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador
is a nonprofit organization which was established in 1984
to stimulate an understanding of and an appreciation for
the architectural heritage of the province. The Foundation,
an invaluable source of information for historic restoration,
supports and contributes to the preservation and restoration
of buildings of architectural or historical significance.
The Heritage Foundation also has an educational role and
undertakes or sponsors events, publications and other
projects designed to promote the value of our built heritage.
The Heritage Foundation is also involved in work designed
to safeguard and sustain the intangible cultural heritage
of Newfoundland and Labrador for present and future
generations everywhere, as a vital part of the identities
of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and as a valuable
collection of unique knowledge and customs. This is achieved
through policies that celebrate, record, disseminate, and
promote our living heritage.
The Oral History Roadshow is a project to
empower and encourage seniors to showcase
their memories through a series of public
oral history night celebrations, with funding
provided through New Horizons for Seniors. The
Collective Memories Project is an initiative of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Heritage
Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with
funding provided by the Department of Children,
Seniors and Social Development.
Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland & Labrador
1 Springdale Street
St. John’s, NL Canada A1C 5V5
Visit online and listen to audio recordings
of these stories, and more!
www.collectivememories.ca
1-888-739-1892
ISBN 978-1-988899-00-8